Bittersweet thoughts on the eve of final rounds

Tomorrow is the day for final rounds for the Gold and Championship events at Adult Nationals. And even though Tim and I have been going about our business this week, practicing as usual, pretending not to notice, I have to confess: we really do wish we could be there competing in one or both of those final rounds tomorrow. It sucks to sit at home and watch the action on IceNetwork and hear about it from phone calls and text messages coming from the lucky skaters who are actually there.

For the last couple of weeks people at the rink have been wishing us good luck, and we've had to say "we aren't going." Yes, we've been working hard, but not for this. People seem surprised that we are sitting out this year because we've been working so hard.

Really, even without Tim's injury and our 6 month hiatus, we could not have gone to Lake Placid. He absolutely positively has to be physically present in Portland tomorrow, Saturday, final round day, because of a software installation at work. He must be available in case anything goes wrong and he has known that since shortly after he got back on the ice. So we knew all along there was no possible way we could compete this year.

We didn't mention this to anybody until now, but for some reason I feel like it's "true confession" time tonight, the night before final rounds. For adults, work and family often take priority over skating. There's nothing we can do about that.

Tomorrow our practice will probably be a good one because we are excited to skate on the big ice at "Shiny Rink." Tomorrow we are going to do our best to forget what is going on a continent away, because if we thought about it we'd probably feel like taking the day off, because being in an ice rink might be depressing. Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be sunny and beautiful, a perfect spring day. Tomorrow the 2009 season can finally, officially, begin for us.