Wednesday, August 22, 2012

16 Ways to Master Your Derby-Life Balance
  remember your friends?

Everybody gets this, right? Anybody who's said "I can't, I have derby" or anybody who has a derby widow...

9. Remember Your Friends?

“Many entrepreneurs I talk to often think about how much time off that their peers have because of their cushy corporate jobs. Entrepreneurs should try creating similar schedules as well so that they can have proper work-life balance. If corporations can make it happen, entrepreneurs can too!” -Danny Wong, Blank Label Group, Inc.

It kind of seems like this guy's not saying remember your friends so much as remember your friends' schedules, and take them! We do not sow! No, I kid. I just started watching Game of Thrones. There's more to life than being a Greyjoy. I hope you think more of your friends than this! I think probably he does. Like which came first, the copy or the headline. Usually the copy, right? Probably somebody didn't quite match the label to the jar.

Really what's this all about, entrepreneur or skater or crafter, all of this is just about being busy and how to fit things in: eating, exercising, piano lessons, Facebook, volunteer hours street teaming track duty, laundry, groceries, rest and recovery... oh and, your friends.

So I read this thing about the difference between therapy and meditation, where therapy is like taking everything out of your closet and looking it all over and deciding what to throw out and what to put back and generally putting it back in a more functional fashion, and where meditation is like putting shelves into the closet and some stuff doesn't fit with the shelves suddenly in there and gets forced out. I bring this up because, well, I really think derby is meditation in a lot of ways, but in this particular way it's like shelves that suddenly get put in your closet and stuff gets forced out. Like certain friends, here's the part where I make everybody paranoid. Let's assume that anybody in this category as it relates to me isn't reading my blog, though. So yeah, all of a sudden you don't see your friends as much, or at all, and let's not assume that's necessarily bad. Maybe some of your friends are assholes. Maybe you didn't know that they're assholes. Suddenly having no time helps you figure out who the assholes were, they're the ones you don't have time for anymore.

But let us presume that you did have a few good friends before derby, and you will of course make new friends through derby, and as the song goes, one is silver and the other gold. I mean, you want to keep your good friends because good friends are good. But friends not in derby are also good, if only for balance and not just to sell tickets for god's sake.

I have a whole theory about friends, actually, of course I do. I mean, keep in mind that I'm the girl who doesn't believe in unconditional love. I adapted this from my first therapist, I think it was originally a theory for how to find your soulmate. Like you want your soulmate to have as many if not all of the below qualities, but it's probably demented to want your friends to have all of these qualities, which actually is what Tilda Swinton thinks about soulmates, so anyway. I think it's useful to think in terms of these qualities because it kind of clarifies what itch a certain person scratches for you, and that helps you know what that relationship is about.

qualityrole
doingcompanion
likingfriend
touchingcomforter
desiringlover
teachingmentor
livingpartner
enduringfamily

So like, perfect example, the girls that you practice with three to five times per week, the quality that you have for each other is that you do something together, you're companions. Somebody can be just that for you; and if you stop doing that thing and you don't spend time together anymore, it's totally cool.

When you truly like somebody and, say, share mind with them, you're friends and you have more of a bond than just doing this thing together. Even if that's how it started.

Touching seems weird, but humans do have a need to be touched. Think if you have a friend who's really good for hugs, this is what that's about. That person is your comforter. But also, this is as good an area as any to introduce the idea that any of these qualities has its own Evil Spock version. Like inappropriate touching is discomfiting, right?

A lover is somebody you desire, which is about sex, and I guess also love. Blah blah.

Teaching, actually, is the other red flag area for me. Inappropriate teaching, augh. It's awesome to have a mentor, but it's personal! People who jump uninvited into a mentoring relationship, why don't you just take off your clothes and jump right into bed. I would seriously be less grossed out by that, that's how gross it is. I'm not saying that sex is gross! Sex with you is gross.

Your partner is somebody you can live with, somebody you can keep house with. Or alternately, somebody you can run a business with. Which if you think about it, a household is.

Last but not least, the sweetie man and I worked on these verbs together and agreed that enduring is what family does for each other. Haha. Small f family, maybe not your actual family. All the other qualities are conditional, but family is as close to unconditional as I can understand.