Tonight is the third-to-last team draft before the unteamed skaters "end skater training". Tonight I'm either going to be teamed (if I'm deemed "bout eligible") or "affiliated"* (if my skating doesn't make the grade, but my attendance, effort, and attitude/coachability are up to par). So on the one hand, it's kind of a win/win, as I'll know which team I'll be on either way (because it's been implied** that I'm ok to be affiliated.) On the other, it's very nerve-wracking because if I don't make the grade this time, I only have two more chances before I'm asked politely to "find another role to play in BDD besides skating". :/ Granted, I can't imagine I'll have a problem being "bout eligible" by December, but still... seeing the ground rushing up is scary, even when you have a few more handholds to grab on your way down...
Being unteamed for a full year has absolutely sucked. The impact it's had on me has been profound in ways that no one could hope to understand without being in my shoes. My perception of myself has been so tied in with being an unteamed skater that I don't know how else to see myself, and part of me is just assuming that this will go on forever. If I can skate well enough tonight to be teamed I'll completely lose my shit, because I genuinely have no clue at all how much of this "not quite good enough"-ness is simply in my head. I have absolutely no idea how far from being teamed I really am. For all I know, I could be on the same level as skaters who I'm simply assuming will be teamed, but then again I could be among the skaters who everyone knows won't make it this time around. I don't know at all and no one can tell me.
The not knowing is killing me, and that's why I'm pants-shittingly nervous right now. Seriously, I can't eat.*** It's that bad. It's not like me to be this much of a wreck, but I am. It's not because I'm worried about having a spotlight trained on me - I can handle that. It's that right now is my first chance to finally get out of this dark, miserable hole I've been in all year, where I've felt like the worst skater, someone who didn't matter, someone who would never be good enough, and someone who didn't fit in at all. I've been so hung up on being an unteamed skater, and I want to be teamed so badly I can't stand it. I just haven't really let myself think about that because being teamed was always so absurdly far away that it was just too painful to think about. Now that it's so close it's really hitting me how awful this has all been. I'm finally admitting to myself that I want to be teamed instead of repeating "it's no big deal, I can wait" over and over like lines from a play.
If I don't make it I'll go back to playing my part, but man, it would be such a relief if I could stop the act. Convincing myself that it doesn't matter takes so much effort. I don't know how much more of it I can take.
I'm just so goddamned tired.
* Meaning that I'll essentially be a benched skater for a specific team who becomes a full, skating member before the next season starts, assuming I can be deemed "bout eligible" before the last-chance-final-cut-thing on December 14th.
** I think it's been directly stated that I'm at least going to be affiliated, but I hate hate HATE counting my chickens before they're hatched, and I have such a "trust no one" policy programmed into me from working at CRLS for so many years....
*** However, I'm forcing things like V8 juice and granola bars down so I don't pass out during the scrimmage, so don't worry.
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