Arienna

Let me tell you about Derby Wives! In roller derby some people have a derby wife which is your very best friend in derby. Your ride or die, the girl who has your back no matter what. She'll ride to the hospital with you when you break yourself. She'll have your back when you start stupid drama (and then maybe tear you a new one for it in private later). Not everyone gets a derby wife and not everyone takes the whole derby wife thing very seriously. But some people do! There are wedding ceremonies at the big roller skate convention and everything.

So on a lot of days I'd be struggling at practice and I'd start beating myself up about it, saying real mean things to myself and feeling absolutely lousy. And then Kodiak Attack would come over and invite me to do something. Do you know how magic that is? She wouldn't fuss over me or tell me how good I was doing, things I couldn't listen to when I was upset. She'd just... quietly remind me that I belonged and she wanted to spend time with me.

Eventually she even went to pick strawberries and make strawberry jam with me. That's a whole 12 hours of picking strawberries, hulling, chopping, cooking, canning. Around hour 6 when I was cheerfully telling her all the delicious desserts you can make with strawberry jam, she admitted she doesn't even like sweets. That's when I started to think she might be wife material... what kind of woman goes through that kind of abuse if she doesn't even like jam?!