Well, I have a lot of reasons. First and foremost, I was heavily involved in another show right up until the start of May. Committing to an ice show rehearsal schedule would have been tough. Second, I had the coaching switch. I had some premonition that this would involve some serious shakeup in what I was learning and how I was learning it, and adjusting to this on top of doing the show would have been tough. I was very, very right, and this was a wise call on my part. Given how crammed my practices got, I would have had no time to dedicate to learning a show program.
But Thirdly and most importantly, I was tired of Ice Show Dramatics. I did my best to stay away and out of it during Winter Show, but as Coaches and Moms kept stopping me and saying, "Have you heard...." and off they'd go on some rant about the latest horrible news from a subset of horrible people. I heard a lot. I shut out a lot. But it was tiring. And dumb. People told me I was being really quiet. It's because I was trying to shut it out.
And it got super Dumb when I caught a skater coming off the ice with a serious injury, and I ended up doing first aid with another mom volunteer while in full costume and show makeup. I'll stop there.
But the Dumb overwhelmed me, because there was so much and it was so needless. After I got accused of being overly dramatic for saying I didn't feel like a part of a team when I got left out of discussions about my own pairs program, all the joy went out of it. I raised a legitimate concern, and I was literally ignored for two days and lost a lesson for daring to voice my feelings. I shut down, and I should never do a show in Shutdown mode. I did the motions, I did the show, but that was all I did.
I understand why the Drama is there. Drama happens when Hurt Feelings become hateful words and actions, which multiply themselves. Skating is infectious, and the infection sets its roots down close to ones heart really. I think skating people need to realize that it doesn't matter who the skater is; young, old, beginner, old hat, pro or patch skater, we're all infected at the heart. No one would skate if they weren't. Compassion in words and actions are so important when we deal with each other at the rink. We need fewer conversations where we glance around before we speak, and more thinking about our words before we speak them. A moment of thinking, "What if someone said or did this to me? How would I feel?" might stop a lot of needless heartache in its tracks. A little empathy can go a long, long way.
There's a line from a middle school video on PMS and menstruation that has stuck with me throughout the years, "You might not like it, but you have to live with people." It's funny because it's so true. We can live with each other by letting Compassion, Kindness and Honesty govern our actions at the rink.
Because after all, we're supposed to be having fun.
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