Slipping Into Something Less Comfortable

My high stickin' hockey friend emailed me with some sage coaching advice this morning. She suggested I wear my old hockey uniform to the big meeting that could very well determine how big a trailer I can afford. "Keep your head up and keep your stick on the ice," she told me. I had other ideas about where I might put my stick, but I suppose she's thinking a bit more clearly.

I was reminded of my hockey days this morning when I slipped on a patch of black ice as I approached Starbucks. My legs literally flew up over my head as I landed, naturally, on my already aching shoulder. I'm as shaky in boots as I was on skates; I might have to dig out my hockey padding so I don't end up in a body cast before spring arrives.

An early manifestation of my midlife crisis, my brief career in ice hockey sustained me from the time of my father's death, when I was thirty-eight, to my fortieth birthday. It began with some encouragement from my then-sadistic friend Cherry, who, with another friend who knew how to skate and wasn't terrified of big sticks, convinced me the experience would be exhilarating. It was, for about a year and a half, until my body could no longer withstand the punishing Friday night routine of painful falls on ice and, worse still, post-game drinking in a nearby bar until closing time.

Though I didn't really give it my all in the bar (much to the derision of my pals), I did persevere on the ice, despite an almost laughable lack of talent. On my fortieth birthday, the hockey chicks cleared the ice so I could have a free shot at my first ever goal. About ten attempts into it, I finally managed to stay upright long enough to push the puck into the wide open net. Pitiful. My hockey days were numbered.

I took myself to see "The King's Speech" yesterday, and have found myself unable to get the idea of the stammering and terrified monarch out of my head. When I played hockey, I approached the ice every week with pure dread, knowing I sucked. After eighteen months of training, my skating was as erratic as the stuttering King's voice, but I kept showing up. We all have our dragons to slay, and though we might never actually beat them, it feels damn satisfying to stand up to them and go down swinging.

I've been anticipating tomorrow's meeting with a not insubstantial measure of dread, thinking somehow I'll stammer and fall on my face and, somehow, not measure up. But if a stuttering young man who was never meant to be King could rise to the occasion in the most trying of times, I can certainly stumble into a room full of people who don't necessarily have my best interests at heart and stand up for myself. Even if the floor is slippery. (As I predicted, the meeting's been postponed, and my dragon slaying will have to wait. The botox queen made some vague assertion about financial information I have yet to provide. Okay, she wins. I tried to avoid disclosing my pink piggy bank, but I'm emptying it tonight to count up my pennies. Fair's fair.)

I did manage to slay a small beast this morning. I dared to exit Starbucks before the salt truck arrived, and made it back to my car without going ass over teakettle. The possibilities are endless.