Day 345

Half primary today due to time constraints. I spent most of my day on the phone trying to save my winter vacation from almost certain ruin at the hands of the Angry Air Mile Gods. I'm SO over airmiles. They're worthless. Grrrr. Everything turned out okay, but I'm relearning that hard, hard lesson: Nothing in life is free.

I took a long walk in the afternoon to burn off my excess energy, then flew through my yoga practice. Afterward, I headed to the rink for the finals in my hockey league. My team was 2nd place going into the finals and that's where we stayed; we lost the game.

I really do love ice hockey and nothing gives me more joy than playing a hard game against an evenly matched opponent. I'm not very competitive about it though - I just like the game. I do my best each time I go out on the ice, but if my best is really lousy on a particular night, I just laugh it off.

But this season, my team was full of people who were taking our recreational league just a BIT too seriously. After being told I couldn't play on a line with a good friend because we were both 'weak players' who were bringing the team down and then was criticized for every small error, my confidence began to falter. Weary of the constant negativity and criticism, I stopped going to games, avoided the pub entirely and missed a large part of the season.

After each final, the teams are redrafted. Next week, I'll come to a room full of mostly new teammates. I hope this group is more interested in the joy of the game and less in who wins or loses. I'm perfectly aware that 'hockey isn't yoga' but we're also not playing in the NHL.