Life is beautiful when you hold the keys to your own kingdom.

I'm not what one would refer to as sporty, athletic or even semi-coordinated. Up until I had my son I had the blessing of a high metabolism and good genes so I never had to worry about my weight. To me a "fun run" is an oxymoron and a gym is a place where people went to sweat and perform synchronised movements to awful music, so I was never interested. Perhaps this is why, when I decided to express my interest in joining VRDL some months ago, my friends I mentioned it to looked at me like I had suggested I wanted to move to the moon.

So.....why roller derby?

To be honest, I'm not really sure, but I know what it isn't. It isn't boredom. I'm crazy busy all the time with work, study, sole parenting and attempting to have some kind of a life. It isn't a love of exercise, of sweating or of getting a perfect ass. I've accepted my post baby body is never going to look like the before photos and while I'm not deliriously happy about it, most days I can accept it. It isn't a deep desire to beat the living crap out of chicks on wheels either.

Maybe it is about being the me I want to be, or the me I can't express in other areas of my life. When my son's father left unexpectedly after five years of knowing nothing else it wasn't him I missed, but the woman I was before I moved in with him. That woman was brave and confident and opinionated and passionate and full of energy. That woman was tough. That woman was derby.

And maybe I can find that woman again.

Bonnie xo