It’s time, I think.
It’s been a year and a half since I turned up to training one Tuesday night in August and informed the team that I’d need some time off. A year and a half since they joked that they knew already due to my increasingly ridiculous excuses. A year and a half since they jokingly predicted I was having twins. Almost 2 years since I last pulled on that yellow and black jersey.
I miss it. All of it. Even the mud.
I’m talking, of course, about rugby.
My favourite picture of me playing rugby. If you want to be genuinely terrified have a look at the rest of the set… I dare you!
I’ve played rugby since the tender age of 16. When I started I was very much the baby of the team so it’s taken a while to come to terms with the fact that I’m now one of the oldest. Not THE oldest, importantly, that’s a while away since our veteran player is 54(!!) this year. I stopped playing when I found out I was pregnant (funnily enough) and this coming Tuesday I will dust off my boots, brush the cobwebs off my kitbag and haul my post baby chunky ass down to the training field.
My c-section scar has completely healed. You’d hope so after a year but it took a lot longer than I anticipated for me to get to a stage where I forget that it’s there. For so long it was still sensitive to a degree, not painful in any way, there was just an… awareness. But that’s gone now and whilst I know that the first few hits will be nerve wracking I’m looking forward to getting stuck in again.
Returning to the pitch as a mother will be quite an experience. While I was pregnant I was informed that I’d lose my nerve once the girls arrived, the prospect of injury being too much to bear. I smiled politely and promptly dismissed the suggestion. Now, on the other side of the bridge, I can see where she was coming from but I’m still not convinced that it will make too much of a difference. Will my game face have changed (we can only hope! Did you look at those pictures?!)? Will I always have 1 eye on the sideline? I hope not. Only time will tell.
I made a vague attempt at returning a few months back but my heart wasn’t in it. I’d just gone back to work and the prospect of yet more time away from H & C was too much of a wrench at the time. It was too soon. A few months down the line and I’m ready to have something that’s my own, somewhere that I’m not a mother, not ‘the girl with twins’, somewhere I can be me again. Just me.
I did have a line in there about being somewhere where I wouldn’t be having to wipe puke out of someone’s hair but, having been on a LOT of nights out with this lot, I don’t know that this is the place for that particular desire to be fulfilled. Sorry girls.
I miss the banter, the shenanigans, the songs, the bus journeys, the team spirit. Taking the piss out of whoever turns up so hungover they don’t even make it onto the pitch. Laughing at whoever forgets their sports bra and has to ductape their boobs in place (wasn’t me… *whistles*). Enjoying a drink and a gossip after a game. Knowing that, regardless of the outcome of each game we have each others back. Knowing that I can be as ridiculous a person as is humanly possible and that this lot won’t give 2 shits. They’ll laugh with me, take the piss out of me and carry on with life, no judgement. That’s what it’s all about.
And should you ever find yourself in need of a good old filthy rugby song to sing, I’m your lass. Or Wild Rover, it’s my anthem… and The Peas favourite lullaby apparently. Convenient.
#BlackAndYellow #MonTheRose
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