“The best thing about dreams is that fleeting moment, when you are between asleep and awake, when you don't know the difference between reality and fantasy, when for just that one moment you feel with your entire soul that the dream is reality, and it really happened.” Author unknown
Sometimes I have really vivid dreams that make absolutely no sense and obviously were not real. At the very least they are entertaining. Like the one where I was able to blast a bunch of bad guys just by rolling an apple core in my palm. The dream involved orbs of light, a little romance and at one point my mother. The part I remembered would make a pretty good basis for a Sci-Fi book/movie/TV series. I like these dreams.
Then I have dreams that make me think the events really did happen. Like my parents having a baby, me losing my teeth and more. Usually those are the not so good dreams. Such is the case with my latest one. It all stems from my new foray into the world of roller derby. Yours truly starts training for a local roller derby league Monday.
Roller derby is a contact sport which involves skating on an oval track. Two teams with five players face off on the track. One player from each team is designated the “jammer.” The other four are blockers. A jammer scores points by lapping around all the blockers, who will do everything possible to stop her. Players usually have tough, fierce nicknames and come from a variety of backgrounds and ages.
I used to watch roller derby on TV when I was younger, but didn’t think too much about it until someone jokingly mentioned I had the persona of a player. That sparked my interest. I had the opportunity to talk to a co-captain of one league. After she answered my 20 million questions, I was intrigued even more. Then some friends and I went to an informational session. I was hooked.
Here I am two weeks later about to start training. There’s just this one little catch: I can’t skate. It’s number three on the list of childhood activities I never learned how to do, right behind riding a bike and swimming. I am happy to announce I learned how to hula hoop in college. And I’ve been able to jump rope since elementary school, albeit not double Dutch.
The good thing is no matter the experience level, the league will teach the fundamentals of skating during training. I won’t get out on the track until I can skate and skate well. I have nothing to worry about. Or at least I didn’t until I started dreaming.
Earlier this week I dreamt I was at practice and the coach was yelling at me nonstop because I was a horrible skater. This wasn’t the first week of training either but my 20th. For some reason I just couldn’t get the whole skating thing down. After weeks of practice, it was still a hassle for me to get onto the track without falling head first. I woke up from that dream scared to death and almost ready to call it quits.
I think deep down I’m afraid I’ll be the worst skater in the history of skate kind. Most people learn how to skate as a child. Can you really teach an old dog new tricks? There’s only one way to find out. You didn’t think I would let some dream keep me from training? And If I should ultimately realize that I’m a hopeless case skating, I’ll move on to my next endeavor: writing my book/movie/TV series based on that other dream. At least a girl can dream.