Roller derby did not save my soul by Fury Duty

Roller derby did not save my soul.

When I discovered derby, I was recently divorced and had few, in any, friends.  I was in therapy and trying to put my life in some sort of order.  (I don’t use the phrase “put my life back together” because I don’t think it had ever really been “together” up to that point.)  I had failed to maintain my pre-marriage friendships during my short marriage.  I landed in Connecticut after moving here for law school, and the folks I had known in law school had mostly moved out-of-state for work.  I was a single owner of two dogs with a ton of time on my hands and without a Netflix subscription.  I was the perfect candidate for soul saving.

I went to a fresh meat night intending to become a roller derby skater.  At first, I was astounded and impressed by the community I found at my local women’s league.  Everyone loved each other.  You had a gazillion sisters!  Yay!

Only it didn’t exactly work that way. I am exceedingly shy in groups of people I don’t know and didn’t really talk to any derby people for the first three or four months I was involved in my league.  When you don’t talk, people think you’re not listening and it’s amazing the things folks will say in front of you.  I watched the drama unfold as the gossip began and evolved and found its way into the collective consciousness of the league.  I knew who didn’t like whom, who had slept with whom, which skater thought she should have been rostered instead of some other skater, and exactly what everyone thought of the refs.

But I needed my soul to be saved, so I got involved.  I was elected to a board position.  I switched to ref track after I realized that the lawyer in me preferred rules and order over the contact and apparent lunacy of the action on the track.  I bought a set of stripes and was so crazy wicked excited to debut as a skating official after a season of NSOing.  I had all these people around me who were supportive and fun and gave me a social life.  I was gonna me a mean zebra machine.  I was gonna learn all the rules and be super-awesome.  I was gonna ref tournaments someday.

And then I broke my ankle minutes before I was supposed to OPR my first event.  I knew I’d be off skates for a while.  I was pretty grumpy.  Meanwhile, things at my Real Job started to go bad.  The politics of my job—I had become politically unfavorable within my public sector law job for a host of reasons—was turning really ugly.  While rehabbing the ankle, I lost my job.

After a long while off (and after giving up my board position because life had gotten in the way), I returned to derby.  Whether it was objectively true, I felt like I did not fit in with the skaters.  After being gone for so long, I felt I did not fit in with the officials.  I was being passed over for staffing at my home league bouts and had no idea why.  Worst of all, I wasn’t growing as an official.  I felt like I wasn’t learning.  I decided to travel around and see how officiating worked at other leagues.

I saw things I liked and things I didn’t like.  I got more involved in the officiating community in my region, as opposed to staying within my league.  (As someone who is inherently shy and socially anxious, this was very difficult for me to do.)  I was learning and seeing and experiencing different brands of leadership and rules interpretation. But I also noticed the politics when it came to higher-level officiating; who was staffed, who wasn’t staffed, which individuals seemed to work more closely or more often with other individuals.

These observations caused me to become a lot more focused on derby and league politics at “home.”  It seemed that my “fun” life was mirroring my “real” life.  It seemed to me that policies were changing in a way that made the officiating staff seem like second-class citizens.  There was tension among the officials.  There was tension with the skaters and the board and the officials and the way each of the three units interacted with each other. I became frustrated.  I said some things I never should have said.  My soul wasn’t saved.  I was angry.  I. Was. Fed. Up.  And I hadn’t even started officiating on skates yet!

I ended up transferring to a different league; I chose the league primarily because of the head ref, whose teaching style meshes best with my learning style.  (This isn’t to say there aren’t other leagues and officials I love to work with. But being able to learn in a safe environment at one’s home league is really important to a new ref.)

I love derby.  I love the rules, I love the complexities, I love the Island of Misfit Toys types of folks who seem to gravitate towards the officiating world.  It is a lot of fun.  Except when it isn’t. Having refereed for only half a season, my perspective has shifted.  Some other officials don’t understand why I have no desire to ref the big WFTDA and MRDA tournaments. For me, it’s about the fun.  As it turns out, I didn’t actually need any soul saving.  That’s something I have to do on my own and no amount of derby is going to do it for me.

Officiating roller derby: This is what I do for fun.  It’s my hobby, not my job.  I hope that by focusing on the aspects I like—and keeping in perspective that it is only a hobby—derby will remain fun for me for a good long while.