Time Travel.

The "Timehop" phone app will, if you ask it to, show you a snapshot of what you were doing on this day in previous years.  It digs through your photos and social media, and has been an interesting reminder in just how significantly one's life can change in a relatively short period of time.

And for me, it's psychic.  It KNOWS stuff.   It knows when Girlie's response to everything is "NO! THAT THING (a nap, her shoes, toast) IS TRYING TO MURDER ME!"  (Adorable photo of sleeping 6 week old baby sleeping on my chest.)

It knows when I am absolutely fed up with work and need a laugh.  (The Kidnapping and Ransom of Dr. Armstrong's Elf of the Shelf.  Complete with dramatic rooftop return of the hostage in exchange for Christmas Cookies.)

It knew that I was waffling on whether or not to return to Derby.  I had gotten back on skates a few times, and each of them was a heart-pounding affair.  The idea of falling, which used to be no big deal, was now scary.  Honestly?  It felt like the first night of bootcamp, all over again.

So it reminded me just how much fun bootcamp was. (I am amused that even though I committed the sin of publicly picking out a Derby Name before i made the team, it all worked out in the end)

But there were still issues - I already feel like I'm stretched thin trying to get through an 84 hour work week and then pick up the pieces (and the groceries) after... while being a single parent every third day.  Why on earth would I add more?

Because it was even better to come back to boot camp as a veteran skater.   Because I see faces (or at least their trademark helmets) in this photo that I spent far too little time with in the last year, despite all our efforts.  

Because I take care of the sick and injured all the time.  And I tell every single one of them that they will get past this... that they will look back on this time in the hospital, when they felt broken and hopeless and it will be just a bad memory.  That their illness shouldn't define who they are, and they need to get back up and walking, to take care of their family and do what they love.

I have to take my own advice.  I refuse to be someone who's afraid.

Tryouts are the 25th.  

I fully expect to not make the team, because I am not Ellen Page and this isn't a movie.  However, wRECk league starts the next week - and I have coerced one of my Mom-buddies to come with me - that we will lay aside our guilt for one night a week and go hit bitches on the track.  (If you can believe it, her job requires an even greater tolerance of BS and shenanigans than mine).  

The one quote that convinced me to try out at the beginning of all this Derby stuff was "If it's important to you, you'll find a way to make it work."  So I'm deciding that it's still important to me.  Being a Mom and a Doc is great.  But neither of those are optional at this point... I need something in my life that I choose to do.   

Now, all I need is duct tape.  (But that's another post)