SAFE.

What is safe?

A question that has been important to me for the past few years. It’s a question that must be important to every human. It’s natural to want to feel safe but I am certain that if we are not familiar with the feeling of safety we might look for it in the wrong place.

I know what fear is. I know how I paint fear: the air is grey and close, like clouds sitting low so I cannot see anything beyond a foot in front of me. I can see that I am sitting under the grey and red plastic desk that stands in the tucked away corner of my room so that if anyone would open the door they would not see me. I am young and small and folded over myself. I can hear voices, one louder and deeper than the other and I want to move to make them stop but I can’t move I am frozen.

We make our own memories. We construct them but that does not make them less real. It is our reality and much of what we believe, the cycles that we follow to protect ourselves are largely informed by these memories.

The majority of my time spent with my biological Father I was terrified. Not scared. Terrified. I always tell this slightly comical (as has often been a tool I use to cover my pain with humour) story to explain to people what it was like to visit my father. He had bought my brother and I wotsits (yes I am talking about the crisps) but they weren’t the original, they were BBQ flavour and I didn’t like them. I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid to throw them in the bin in case he saw the half empty packet, even if I buried them it was too risky. I thought the best route to getting rid of them was to flush the wotsits down the toilet. If you’ve never eaten wotsits before you may not know that these cheesy snacks are very light and airy. What I did not realise then is that wotsits do not flush down the toilet – they float. I remember the thudding in my chest as I watched the wotsits swirl around and around and around the toilet bowl not going down and I remember nothing after. This was, obviously, much worse than putting the wotsits in the bin. I don’t know what happened after, I don’t even know if the memory is real but the feeling is real and that’s the important thing.

When I first wrote that passage I felt such shame and guilt; embarrassed to have lived that but I did. Whether or not my memory has been sculpted and influenced through the years, that feeling of absolute abject fear I can feel tight in my chest to this day.

So we know my opposite of safe. This still begs the question what is safe?

I think everyone’s safe is different and this is what I have learnt about mine.

When I went to psychotherapy in 2017 we talked a lot about relationships and set about to deciphering what I wanted in a relationship (romantic or otherwise) which is sometimes the entire opposite from what I am drawn to. I tend to be drawn to the aloof, the unavailable which is in many ways familiar to me. What I want, what I truly want is reliable, stable, safe. I carried this with me and was thoughtful of the relationships that I encountered. With friends this came easily, I found myself surrounded by those with just those qualities and those that did not have them I did not invest too much time in. Romantically though I shut down which at the time was the right decision for me. Afraid of repeating the same mistakes. Unwilling to add to the hurt that I was already sifting laboriously through with rejection.

The following winter I was in Sri Lanka and I was introduced to yin yoga with Feli. It was this winter that I also met Izzy. For the first time in what felt like too long I was forging friendships with strong, inspirational and loving women. Feli was my Frau. My wife at the surf camp where I was working. I opened up to Feli in ways that I hadn’t felt able to with other people. Such is the acceptance that this magnificent creature welcomes everyone she meets into. Little surprise that she is a fantastic yoga teacher. Yin yoga is quite intense, you hold the pose for a long time: 3 minutes or more, and it opens those tight spots. You have to really let go to get deep into the poses and it’s hard but the more you let go the deeper the reward. There tend to be a lot of hip opening stretches in yin which is somewhere that we tend to store a great deal of emotion. My experience with yin yoga often left me quiet and contemplative. Not sad but quiet. Sometimes I had visions and there was one particularly profound session that left an imprint on me.

I saw gold. Gold dust in the air, brushed over everything. I am 4 years old I am sat on a plastic swing in the backyard, the seat is red, the rope is yellow and thick. My fringe is chunky and a little wonky, my cheeks are full and glowing and I am laughing as I swing. I don’t see the rest of the garden, just a circle of grass around the swing but I know it is my backyard. In the same way I don’t see my Father but I know he is there and I know that he is laughing too, that he is happy; that there was a time that he was happy. That he loved me, for a time at least and it wasn’t all fear and poison.

When everyone else had left the roof terrace I sat numb on the floor and Feli said to me “where does it hurt?” and I told her, bemused that I had thought for so long that I had to keep closed, to build walls to be safe but in fact the opposite was true. Open is safe. Safe is open.

When I was home in 2018 I had a brief but intense relationship – because clearly that made sense (note sarcasm). I spent 9 months celibate and then ran head first into a relationship that was fast and furious but made me sick. I was depressed. The kind of depressed when I’m having such intense panic attacks that I am pretty sure that I am suffocating, and I told myself again and again that it wasn’t that the relationship was wrong but that I was wasn’t used to a healthy relationship. Turns out sometimes our fight or flight is working correctly, which is annoying because I spend most of my time telling myself that mine is not working. The relationship ended with my being rejected, or so I felt. Which hurt.

I was finding it hard to sleep. I was tired and I wanted to sleep. I really did, but I couldn’t. Thoughts were spinning in my head, I felt the familiar buzz of distress and anxiety in my chest, I was hurting badly. I decided to try a meditation for sleep. If you haven’t tried Michael Sealey’s youtube videos for this I would certainly recommend. When I am not so agitated as I was on this occasion they have sent me to sleep without my even realising they were doing so. On this occasion I got to the end of the video without falling asleep but I was much calmer, my breathing was slow, I had a focus.

Feli.

I think for most of my life I have been searching for safe. In the wrong places. Generally, I thought it would come from someone else. Not just someone else but a partner, that there is some magical unicorn type human being that sees me in my entirety the moment that they meet me. That does not exist and thank god it doesn’t because it’s actually a kind of creepy thought that someone would see all of you in one moment and now that I think of it not at all desirable because that person could not have felt all that you’ve felt and further more I have learnt the joy of gradually becoming intimate with someone. Not necessarily a partner but friends. In her podcast Vulnerability, Intimacy and Spiritual Awakening Tara Brach calls intimacy deep truth telling. I consider myself fortunate to have a handful of friends who I can share with my deepest truths. The truths that I stumble over, that I tell no one, that make me a little sick to think of sharing and you know how they react? Gently. Quietly. Their face does not betray anything but compassion. I don’t know how I expect them to react, perhaps the overriding belief for me is that they won’t believe me or they’ll see me differently but they don’t. Izzy and I had one such truth-telling on my birthday this year and she said to me “I’m sorry that happened to you.” and that broke my heart; a few more scales slid off.

I know exactly what it is to be with someone who makes me safe. It is quiet. When I am with my best friend, one on one you know what I hear in my head? Nothing. Not one comment from my ego. No thought of past or future. I am 100% with her, normally laughing loudly and unselfconsciously along the way.

Depression in Paradise.

Eventually you have to accept that sleeping for 5 hours in the day, 12 hours in the night is not just catching up on sleep; is not an effect of the jetlag because you’ve been back in the UK nearly two weeks now and you were fine when you first got back. You were more than fine, you were electric.

It’s hard to say that I am depressed because it doesn’t feel sad. It feels like nothing. It feels like I am just waiting for time to pass. Waiting until I have some purpose or direction and I wonder at not being able to make it myself.

I cannot say that my mental health was more stable when I was away but I can say that I had a remedy thrust upon me whether or not I wanted it. CONNECTION. I didn’t always want it but like the slimy cough medicine of childhood I had no choice but to choke it down and believe me some days I truly was choking on it. When a customer said to me “we all have bad days…remember, you’re living in paradise.” And I wanted to scream at him that my living in paradise was not exactly relevant to the darkness that I found myself plummeting into. Depression has nothing to do with my not being grateful. I was grateful every day to be in Sri Lanka, to work with inspirational, nurturing people and I counted my blessings every day. That doesn’t mean some days are not hard.

Connection came to my rescue in many forms whilst I was in Sri Lanka.

When I felt completely nothing and it was raining and I lay in the hammock and Leo came and lay in the hammock next to me. Not to talk, just to be and I can’t imagine a greater kindness than to just be with me and not talk to me.

The time I threw all my toys out the pram and Leo suggested that I might be “on a downer” to which I stamped my foot on the beach told him I was anxious, not depressed, that I had adrenaline coursing through me and I felt sick. “…sounds like a downer to me.” and he was right. I apologised for my erratic mood swings to him later and he told me sincerely not to apologise, that I could have my ups and downs because he was straight and it worked. He told me that it’s part of me and I should not be sorry for it.

When Joni, looked inside me and told me that I mustn’t take everything so much to heart. Because it was direct but I so needed to hear it.

Feli coming to me and asking “where does it hurt?”.
That time that I couldn’t face anyone because I knew if I spoke to anyone, even to ask them to pass the toast I would fall apart. So I lay in the hammock and tried to block out the chatter of everyone having breakfast and reminded myself just one more lesson and I could run away to my room, cry and be sick or whatever I needed to do. Feli came and brought me a little fruit, climbed into the hammock with me and held me.

Michelle and I having honest chats and realising that many people have the same destructive habits of me for whatever reason, that I am not alone and I am lucky to have the self-awareness to see the routes of my actions because this truly offers me that chance to change; to break the cycle.

Mr Jan letting me cry at him over the smallest of things which was just the vehichle for expressing what I needed to because really I was just tired and nervous about going home.

Aja telling me that I was “perfect… just as I am”, and I had to go into the cupboard so no one could see me cry because it touched me so much that I should be enough for anyone.

Home feels like going backwards somehow. I feel very conscious of what people think of me. I feel like hiding and that is what I have been doing. I know this is temporary. I know it will pass and that moving away from my home town is a good move but in some ways I have robbed myself of connection. Because it’s hard to ask for. It’s easier when people thrust it upon you. It’s hardest when you have to ask and you feel cloying, you feel like a burden on others. Pathetic is how it feels to desperately want 5 minutes. For someone to see you (and I mean really see you) for 5 minutes. A bonus if they bring you some soup and tell you it’s all going to be ok.

I’ll always be grateful for being shown myself through these people’s eyes. To be loved not in spite of my rushing highs and devastating lows but, in part because of them. To know I am not defined by them.
All these sparks of connection reflect myself to me and bring myself back to me. Because that’s what I lose in my depression; I lose myself, I lose my grip on my purpose and I cannot see what could possibly make me important to anyone, least of all to myself.

All photos courtesy of the very talented Michelle Mattern

Is that a metaphor?

Chapter One

Sweet Saplings

Pete.

Friend. Confidante. Tomato plant.

It started like all great love stories… with an unerring parental love.

I had told my Dad before I came back from travelling that I wanted to grow something. I had a poor track record with caring for plants… animals… living beings in general. This time I was willing to put in love, time and effort. I was convinced that I was ready. And so it was, two weeks since being home that my Dad brought me Pete as a mere sapling.

How is this a great act of love you might ask? Well I shall tell you. You see that robust and somewhat complicated looking potting set up? That is all the handiwork of my Dad. My Mother later remarked that had this plant been for anyone else he would have merely given them a bog standard pot, not bothered to add a bamboo stick for imminent growth. One might argue that it was an indication of what little hope (given my track record of caring for all thing living) he had of my success but I would argue that this is a true showing of pure love. For a family remarkably uncomfortable with saying those words “I love you.” this right here is those words in living breathing form.

I named him Pete. Quite a confusing name being that my best friend is also called Pete. This had no bearing on the name; Pete just felt right and so Pete he was.

When I was in Australia, my friend Ashley gave me a book called “Treasure Yourself” by Miranda Kerr. She had bought it on a whim and after knowing me for a month or two then knew that it was for me. She told me that at the time she didn’t know who the book was for but that she felt compelled to buy it. And thus truly began my journey of self-love. A path I had known for a long time that I must travel but up until now I had been afraid of committing to. In this book I read of the experiments of Masuro Emoto. Emoto used a microscope to photograph water under the influence of loving words and separately under the influence of negative words the results were quite telling…

No doubt many have heard as I had of talking to ones plants and it was this in mind that I was committed to not only caring for Pete in the visceral sense but in the spiritual sense. I believed that if I spent time with Pete, talked to him that he would grow all the more stronger. And so it was that every day I would sit with Pete and talk to him. That is not to say I only shared the positive with Pete but I conversed with him. I told him of my day, the ups and downs and I found myself without design always ending on a positive.

And he grew. He grew magnificently.

Pete became part of the household. In Spring Beth and in Summer Jonty came to stay to work at Raven and every evening without fail we would sit with Pete. We would drink with Pete before going out. Pete began to represent a safe place of sharing in a non-judgmental atmosphere.

I measured his growth by the moon and he grew beyond my expectations.

I talked of Pete to everyone and anyone, everyone who came to visit me met Pete. I had no shame in my interest that verged on obsessive. I was proud. I was in love with Pete.

Chapter Two

Cruel Cosmos

Storms came but Pete was sturdy and though I considered many options of protecting him I felt that to build a wind breaker for one tomato plant was overkill. He was tied, he was secure.

But no story worth telling is without its tragedies. One morning I went to collect the wetsuits from the shed before going to work and I found a terrible sight. Pete had snapped. He snapped almost fully through his trunk.

I was absolutely devastated. I spoke to friends who suggested that he was save-able but I was convinced that the damage was irreparable and I resigned myself to considering the most economical use for a poor snapped tomato plant.

I became depressed.

Over a plant? Yes. But I should fill in the blanks here. I was heart-broken over everything that this plant represented. I gave Pete all the love that I was capable of giving. I poured my heart and soul into him and still I was helpless against outside forces. I felt that Pete was a metaphor for my romantic relationships. One in particular. The one relationship that I had ever felt secure in, that I had ever been sure was true love, which had in the end not gone how I had wanted. How could I have poured so much of my energy and love into something for it to be shattered before my very eyes? Failure.

If the Universe was trying to tell me something I was getting the message loud and clear. A phrase that had always for reasons not entirely clear to me these days, used to send my brother and I into hysterics kept coming to mind…

IS THAT A METAPHOR?

I gave up. I didn’t want to speak of it. I felt shame. Deep shame that I had tried so hard and yet failed.

Or so I had thought…

Chapter Three

Minor Miracles

A few weeks later I was changing after work in the back yard as we often did. Probably just at the point that I was elegantly leaping about with my knickers around one ankle, wet hair slapping about the place, periodically flashing my bottom whilst I rambled to Beth and Jonty about something in our day I looked up, and I saw red.

Red.

Pete had somehow, without my watering him or feeding him produced tomatoes.

Small, sweet millionaire cherry tomatoes.
I was beyond ecstatic.

It was not a huge haul, but the quality was incredible. I was particular about who I shared Pete’s fruit with. Close friends and family – to those I love I gave the fruits of my own love. One I gave to Ian, the head lifeguard at the beach where I worked. I had not told him that Pete was reborn and delivered to him an envelope with a singular sweet tomato in it. He was delighted, as you can probably imagine; it probably made the season worthwhile.

Chapter Four

Current Conclusions

The summer is long gone. As is any (well, most) of my feeling that everything I love will break. Perhaps Pete was a metaphor. Perhaps I should get out more. In the end everything has as much power to mean something to you as you give it. I choose to learn from every experience I have, or at least I try to even if that experience may seem trivial or silly to another person.

What I learnt from Pete is something that I think my therapist was also hoping I would work out. When we force things, feelings, circumstances, they lose their meaning, they lose their truth. When we let things grow organically, there is such pure beauty in that though it might be frustrating at times take it one step at a time.

Don’t force it. Let it grow.

Is that a metaphor?… No. No it is not.

You’ve probably heard that it’s a small world..

“Small world” is a phrase that you hear a lot when you’re travelling. It seems like every other day you are bumping into someone who knows someone that you know. Which actually, when you think about it isn’t that surprising. Perhaps it is more common in the travelling surfer community because I seem to bump into people who know people that I know all the time. Or perhaps if we are open to the possibility we will find ourselves fortunate enough to have the Universe answer our prayers by putting the right people in my path at the right time. A theory that could not be more supported by the following story.

When I first came to Sri Lanka this time I met Alicja (which I mentioned in this blog (….)) through Alicja I met Matt. Actually I met Matt whilst surfing, we got to chatting and he said to me “Have you met a Polish girl?” which I said I had and he said “Ah! You must be Abby…” Which I am. Alicja had told me about Matt actually and from there we became buddies.

Matt is originally from the UK but he has since emigrated to Australia near Melbourne. Matt popped into my life at just the right time. It is true that you are much influenced by the company you keep and if you are not at all then you have a very strong character indeed. Humans are social animals; we follow our pack. Matt gently steered me to the path yoga whilst I steered him to the path of early morning surf sessions, these things going hand in hand and being quite exhausting meant I was not tempted to nights of debauchery and drinking, a recreation that albeit arguably fun, has the potential to set back my work in therapy by months. So we got into our routine of surfing and yoga and spent most of our time together discussing our beliefs, our histories, our future, our present. I really treasure the time we had together. Then Matt left.

He left as I was going to Ella and it was the best decision I think for him, still I felt that when I got back from Ella that I would miss his presence.

The first surf I had back in Midigama after Matt leaving was an early morning. I had the place to myself for half an hour. A couple guys paddled out. One paddled toward where I was on the peak and the other sat on the shoulder. I looked over at this guy sat on the shoulder. He had on one of those bucket sun hats that tie under your chin and a wide red board. I smiled to myself – this outfit reminded me of my very dear friend Chris. A well-travelled, kind hearted Canadian that I had had the pleasure of meeting and becoming good friends with in Java 10 months ago in Java, Indonesia.

This guy…

Me with my motley crew of sailors including Chris in Java January 2017… he’s the first on the left of this very blurry photo! 🙂 …

Before I paddled near him, we drifted toward each other on the current. The guy on the red board beamed at me, and I recognised more deeply smiling eyes and straggly beard.

I don’t know how many times I said “Shut Up!” in disbelief but I will hazard a guess at 20 at least. Along side, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!?!”

Chris has not succumbed to social media. So apart from the occasional whatsapp message to check in, share some post that reminded one of the other, we had had no contact for 6 months and I had no idea he was even considering coming to Sri Lanka and nor had he any idea that I was coming here.

Me and Chris in Sri Lanka, November 2017

Chris’ company has been a blessing to me each day. Especially having hurt myself and being unable to surf, Chris is always keen for an adventure and he came with me both times to have my stitches pulled out. More importantly though he gives me context. He knows some of my history and we have a history ourselves which is not something that I have with many people here… Unless you consider Pete and Hazel who I met here who are from my home village(!)

Me, Pete and Hazel in Sri Lanka, November 2017…

Having been out of the water for ten days and for some of those days being in considerable pain I have done an incredible job of staying positive. A few days ago though my mood started to dip and has not yet elevated itself. I know it will pass and I allow it to be. On that first day of feeling down I just really wanted to be left alone, I went for a walk and onto the beach. I put my feet in the water and it struck me as such tantalizing liquid silk; I wanted nothing more than to immerse myself in the ocean. Water is so integral to my being. I realise this more and more. When I am trying to fall asleep struck by insomnia, or when I am trying to unclutter my mind in savasana I always go to some imagery of the sea. I truly believe in the healing properties of salt water but right now I can’t go in the sea for risk of infection, so I am restricted to salty tears as my only healing portal. Missing that part of myself sort of makes other things fall apart and I was struck by the vacuous nature of relationships made whilst travelling. Intense and quick. On reflection I realise that I was being particularly selfish and feeling incredibly self-important that day but it was what it was and I found great comfort in being able to see Chris the next day and have my ego placated by having some context awarded to me.

However, having damned the “fast and furious” nature of relationships made when travelling it is actually one of my newest friends that I find most at ease with and with her I am the most able to communicate the jumble of my mind. Hypocrite indeed I am.

I guess no matter how big or small the world is the Universe affords us the opportunity to make meaningful connections and why shouldn’t these connections transcend time and location? All we need is to be willing to see them, open to pursuing them and brave enough to be vulnerable and allow people to see our true selves.

 

PLANTATIONS!!..

…Tea Plantations to be more precise…

Ah the train in Sri Lanka… This was my second time to Ella in Sri Lanka (more on the déjà vu effect in this post). On my previous visit I have been alone and although I enjoyed it very much, to experience the same place travelling with people is to experience the place entirely newly with a tumult of strong opinion and hilarity if you are, as I am with Tiago and Roberto. Poor girl that I am travelling with a Portuguese silver fox and an Italian stallion. I am sure you are weeping for me right at this point.

The waves had turned a little off in the South and I was happy to take a break when Tiago asked me if I would like to go and it happened that Roberto was also planning to head North that day and so it was that our travelling party came together.

So we got here. It was a five hour bus journey complete with Sri Lankan tea time stops for some par-boiled corn from Midigama. That’s about 200KM in a crammed bus with no chance of sleep because once again your super hench surfer shoulders (great for paddling, not great for fitting into your nicest dress) bring you trouble; there simply is not enough room to sit back fully, no chance of resting your head. Sure you try putting your hands across the seat in front of you and resting your forehead on them but every bump (and there are some bumps) you end up nutting yourself out of whatever slight semblance of rest you might have been experiencing.

Roberto managed to sleep, he nabbed a seat at the back of the bus and before we knew it he had his head thrown back, mouth open, catching flies barely aware that he was on a bus. He had told us at 6am as we waited for the bus to arrive that he could sleep anywhere and he seemed to be proving this.
The day we arrived we noticed the coolness in the air but it was not raining and at times was quite bright. We visited the waterfall and decided to save our walking until the next day.

…Me looking rather rotund next to a waterfall- it’s the baggy clothing guys…

When we awoke the next day it was raining. It was raining A LOT. Heaps of rain you might say. With rain like this, a thick fog and a sky smeared grey as far as you could see there seemed little point in doing the walks. Aside from getting soaked and muddy, we wouldn’t be able to see any of the views that we had hiked 2 hours to see.

Stellar views from the homestay though…

We decided, after breakfast, to catch the train toward Nanu Oya. There we had the option of heading to Nuwariya Elia but only if the weather had cheered up of course.

The train journey was three hours each way. The way there I found to be very relaxing. I sat by myself for the most time and it was a great time to digest all the experiences I have encountered on the last 10 days in Sri Lanka. It was quite bright still in places and it was a lovely trip. I really sank into my surroundings and made some notes and shoddy illustrations in my journal for a piece of short fiction that I am writing for a competition.

We got to Nanu Oya and we considered carrying on to Kandy, Adams Peak and Colombo but as the forecast is the same there we saw little point and decided to come back to Ella, spend another night here before we go back to the coast.. to more warmth and hopefully waves!

It was on the way back that I must admit I got rather silly.

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I know. Terribly out of character…

The returning train was much busier and people knew this, they were practically clambering over each other. I was not too interested in that myself so when I got on there were no seats but room to store my bag and I was happy to sit at the door. Best decision I made all day.

As you can see I was really rather content at the door be it standing or sitting down.

 

My guess is that you’ve seen those photos of tourists hanging out of trains in Asia. If not let me tell you that the doors on the trains are open and it is quite the done thing to hang out of it and have ones photo taken, whilst keeping an eye out for tunnels and foliage and the such. See exhibit A.

I got pretty into it. God damn it we all did.

Thing is. I might have over dosed on the experience a little. I use this turn of phrase because by the time we got back to Ella I had to really calm myself down. I was a hot mess.

We made a little posse at the back of the carriage. We met a couple from Kent in the UK. They were well travelled and very interesting. We shared stories of our experiences so far in Sri Lanka. They told us and showed us pictures of how they had been taken to see wild elephants and the peculiar experience of being taken to a large rubbish tip where there were indeed wild elephants sifting through the rubbish to find food, some had had rubbish all over their backs. Which just shows how these animals have adapted to the impact of human waste. We shared a pack of hot peanuts with the couple and another guy who I thought was from Belize, Roberto said he was from… and Tiago thought he was from… I think in the end Roberto was correct. Anyhow, that’s some proper bonding. We saw the same British couple later when we were having dinner and they told us of the dramatic arrival they had had to their hostel. Basically going entirely the wrong way, not knowing they were walking away from their end destination having a tuktuk ride a dirt track next to a cliff edge, fearing that the tuktuk might slip off the cliff at one point and having to eventually push the tuktuk up the slippery, muddy track. In the end they found out that all along their hostel was in the city centre, tucked up a little street that they had walked past already.

Back to the train journey… It was raining still but I loved it. I remarked to Roberto “I love to feel the rain on my face, there is simply no feeling quite like it!” Sounding terribly British. I heard the male counterpart of the couple from Kent snigger warmly from the other side of the train.

Roberto and I were screaming like wolves into every tunnel that we passed through, seeing if we could hold that breathe that poured out of us for the entire tunnel. We hung out and I talked to the passing plants. We discussed the likeliness of being able to jump and roll from the train if needs be, which we considered to be very unlikely because although you might not die instantly you were sure to impale yourself on something and to slowly bleed out which seemed like an unhappy option. We laughed so much. Too much almost. I nearly wet my pants when having stopped at a station for a little time the train lurched forward and I let out a dramatic scream then cackled uncontrollably. If you’ve heard my laugh you will know that it is both distinctive and loud. I didn’t care. I am sure the whole train could hear it I had no self-consciousness. I was as curious and giddy as a child on their first train ride. Tiago opted to find a seat when more people got off whilst we trundled toward Ella. Partly because he didn’t care to stand for three hours but probably also in part because he was quite embarrassed to be seen with the cackling, screeching pair of clowns by the train door.

 

Kissing Surfboards Ain’t So Clever

It’s a good thing, (though it doesn’t feel like it at the time) that I am woken at 0630 with a knock and “Excuse me… soup ready.” Because otherwise I have nothing to get up for and would nestle back into a groggy and unproductive sleep. Today is actually the first day that I have felt able to write, but as I have just taken my painkillers I know it is only a matter of time until I sleep again.

 

 

100% rest is what I am going for the first few days of recovery and to be honest it is all I can handle and sometimes even rest is too much. I cannot really speak. Sometimes I can speak better than others, depending on the soreness, the swollenness and the pain. At times I am so uncomfortable that I am really quite irritable and people keep asking me what happened to me. An understandable question when the injury is clear as day on my face.

…Day One: sad and damp…

On Tuesday morning I experienced my first debilitating surf injury….

I was surfing at Sion which is just down the road from where I am staying in Midigama, Sri Lanka. There were some fun waves coming through. It was the first time that I had surfed there and I had it to myself for the first half an hour. Not that I made very much of this fact at the time as I had trepidation about the depth of the water and where the rocks were as on often is when surfing a spot for the first time. My friend Simon paddled out and told me where it got more shallow so I felt more at ease. It got a little busier but not too busy especially if compared to the spot Plantations which is just over the road from where I stay.

I got some good waves, chatted to a few people, the sun was shining all was well with the world. I took a fast right hander, I walked to the nose and pulled a gawky hang five (this is when, on a longboard normally, you walk to the front of the board, the back of which is held in the curl of the wave and you balance with five toes over the nose of the board) and before I could walk back the wave closed out. The next part is a bit of a blur but I’m sure that I went up as the board went down and then I came crashing down onto the board somehow because I distinctly remember seeing my board come at me. I managed to cover the side of my head but my board hit me square in my face. I knew instantly that I had hurt myself pretty bad even though I couldn’t really feel anything. There was blood everywhere but I reminded myself that in water, especially salt water, wounds bleed a great deal more. My breathing was teetering on that of someone about to cry but I calmed myself down breathing slowly and steadily through my nose. I gathered my senses and my surfboard and paddled out to the little beach that I had paddled out from. I ditched my board and walked to the surf camp in front of the break holding my face all the while telling myself that I was fine, to stay calm. I could feel that there was a cut in my lip. It felt bulbous but I knew that it couldn’t be so big as it felt. I must have looked a sight; I am sure there was blood all over my chin.

There were people sitting having breakfast at Zion, a couple of them came over to me, I must have looked a state and the look on their faces confirmed that. One soft and kindly said to me “baby girl, what has happened?” it was then that I started crying. He took my arm gently and had a look, “it’s not so bad, it feels weird now but it really is ok.”

More people came around but they didn’t crowd me, just reassured me. A New Zealander who I was talking to in the surf came over and took charge he told me he would take me to the hospital that I would probably need stitches, I told him that I had got a really good wave and he told me that he had seen.

I hadn’t eaten that morning as it’s my routine to surf then eat then surf again in the mornings so I was riding on pure adrenaline. The tuktuk ride was about 20 minutes long and I remember reminding myself to breathe deeply through the pain and to take in all the surroundings because I would want to write about this (!!) although why I thought at that point I would be wanting to write about the beauty of the rice paddies on our way there I cannot fathom!… They were beautiful though.

I cried a lot. Not sobbing but I couldn’t help the tears from rolling out of my eyes. I don’t even think I was crying because of the pain or because of the circumstance, I was just crying at the thought of my friends’ faces when I got back and saw them and I think essentially what started as my crying at my own helplessness ricocheted into any other issues I have been harbouring recently that might give me a reason to cry and I think if that is the case maybe it was good for me to have a big old cry and to have a good excuse for it.

The worst part was having the anaesthetic injected into my lip. Funny fact: lips, face in general I guess, pretty sensitive part of your body! I will admit, I squealed. And the kiwi guy (I don’t even know this guy’s name so we’ll call him KG) held my leg and comforted me as well as someone whose known you for 30 minutes can. He was an absolute legend and I am currently trying to find him to thank him as he left Sri Lanka the next day. Regardless that guy has a lot of good karma coming his way and if I have anything to do with it, some beers also 🙂

…Daily clean…

So KG and I headed back to Sion. I couldn’t really speak. I cried some more. Sat in the back of the tuk tuk in my wetsuit with a bedsheet wrapped around me, tears trickling out of my eyes.

Back at Sion I was still pretty woozy and I told them that my friend Simon works at the place over the road and that he would probably take me back to my homestay. Everyone there was super sweet. They got me a coconut and a smoothie and told me their own war stories and to come and hang out whilst I recovered, which I have done. They had got my board from the beach for me. They let me leave my board there when Simon came and picked me up. It was here that I met Hambalkó Bálint who told me that he had got some shots of me in the water, even some of the wave that was my downfall: the wave of doom…

…Hanging-5 just before I came tumbling down – worth it…

So I’m resting and healing, getting a bit better day by day.

…Day 2 – still hawt…

When I got back to my homestay and took my painkillers I then had a little lie down, exhausted from all the stress of getting hurt and I was pretty high too I sent my friend Russell this message…

I still stand by the fact that I look badass. At the end there I was asking him not to mention it to anyone who might mention it to my Mum. I wanted it to heal more before telling her, so I waited a day and then told her and she totally took it in her stride. I think had this been a few years ago she would have had a totally different reaction but she was totally unfazed. Good skills Mumsie!

I have told myself for years, I guess since I read The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo, that everything happens for a reason but it wasn’t until this incident that I realise that I truly believe that. I can imagine if this had happened to me a year ago I would be wallowing in self-pity, absolutely gutted that I can’t surf however I am entirely fine with it. I have shocked myself by this. Yeah, at times I am a bit down but that’s really because it hurts or is uncomfortable. Instead of focusing on what I can’t do I find myself thinking ‘what can I learn from this?’ I appreciate all the things that I CAN do. I can write and read and I am lucky enough to be on this surf trip in the first place, I am lucky to be able to afford medical attention, that I didn’t hurt myself in worse way. Instead of seeing what I lack in this accident I see all that I have to be grateful for and perhaps the thing that I am most thankful for is this distinct change in mind-set that I was not even aware had happened.

What struck me particularly is to be thankful for was the connection that my accident created. Odd though it may seem I was quite overwhelmed by the kindness of people, how willing and readily they gave their help and . That my friends here are checking up on me, looking into my mouth to check it’s progress, keeping me company when I want it and leaving me alone when I don’t. **Izzy, you’re a star, definitely picking up on what I need and taking care of things before I even need to ask. Thanks chika!**

I guess most of all though I’m grateful for the sick shots… ROFL.

Instead of itching to get back in the water, although it would be nice, I am going to take my time. Slowly get back into some yoga, play some dominoes, write some fiction, perhaps change my travel plans and head to India earlier, who knows – the options are limitless and as always, beyond my imagination, just how I like them…

Brand New Old Love.

I have a few favourite books. Four of which I have read up to six times each, at more than a year of space between the previous reading. These books are very different; a classic, a novel, another novel dubbed (though in my opinion not necessarily so) feminist and a shameless piece of chicklit; Persuasion by Jane Austen, Stone Diaries by Carol Shields, The Women’s Room by Marilyn French and Jemima J. by Jane Green. Curiously I had not noticed before that these are all written by women.

Each time that I read these books it seems that I am reading an entirely different book which is at the same time familiar; I have read Persuasion so many times that it is like a literary blanket; it’s familiarity soothes me. It is this peculiar sensation of experiencing something you know with a brand new mind-set that I find in revisiting Sri Lanka 3 years after my first journey here.

Sri Lanka was the first place that I travelled for such an extended period of over a month on my own. It was, in fact the only time in my life that I had by choice been entirely and absolutely alone with no ties to relationships either in the wings or solidly. I arrived in January 2014. I was on my own, and I was absolutely terrified. I arrived in the night. I could make out just the shapes of the crashing waves and the sound which was loud and rushing. I said very little when I arrived at my home stay. Eating and squirelling away to my room.

I awoke the next day early but I was unable to get out of bed until mid-afternoon. I cried wishing that my now ex-boyfriend who I had travelled to Indonesia with were there. He had handled everything when I hadn’t felt able. He had done most of the talking, he had looked after me when I was freaking out, scared of reef breaks. He had carried my board along with his when we had to run to catch a boat and I was not very well. I had totally relied on him. I stopped crying and came out from under the sheet where I was hiding as if anyone was going to force themselves into my room. As foolish as that sounds to me now, it was all unknown and at that point in my life nothing was more scary to me than the unknown.

But, as I said, I did get up. I went out and it was windy. Really windy. I walked down the road to get my bearings. I was quite alarmed by the quick and wobbly traffic, I was quite put out by the constant beeping of horns which I felt to be directed at me. I felt painfully self-conscious and out of my depth.

 

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea
– – E. E. Cummins

            So I went to the sea. I sat on the beach in front of the surf break Lazy Lefts, under the low shrubs along the beach. There was a guy there sitting in a canvas chair and he came and spoke to me. I can’t remember his nationality, I imagine that I did not ask but I feel perhaps his accent was Canadian. Certainly he was Western. He told me not to be downheartened, that the trade winds picked up in the afternoon. I had made contact. And from there it got easier. I surfed Lazy Lefts most mornings before anyone had got in and branched out to other breaks, meeting many people and establishing some fantastic friendships.

How I communicate with others has changed drastically since 2014. Far from saying as little as possible, shy of talking to the locals in case they don’t understand me I speak more, communicating more with my facial expressions and gestures a technique that might seem simple but really only comes with a certain level of confidence which I did not possess in 2014.

Similarly, in the surf. It wasn’t until I went to Taiwan in 2015 and felt, quite rightly that no one really spoke my language at all, and I had to force myself out of my resting concentration face (or resting b*tch face as some friends of mine helpfully call it) whilst surfing which could be misconstrued as a grumpy face and swap it for a beaming smile and mustering the courage to say “hello” or “good morning” to everyone in the water when I paddle out. Not that I am chattier than usual in the surf, I prefer to chat idly than talk too much and miss waves, but I like to be overtly friendly, promoting a more relaxed environment which is after all what I am interested in establishing, “relaxing” being the objective for this first month of my travels.

Leaving the UK for my travels this November my Mother said to me when she was driving me to Bude to be taken by Russell to Exeter to eat vegan pizza before my 0105 bus to Heathrow (the difficulties of travelling anywhere with a 9ft board from Cornwall), that she thinks I am incredibly brave, “plucky” I believed she said. I think at the time I shrugged it off. Since travelling for 20 months from Taiwan to New Zealand, Australia and Java, Indonesia travelling for such lengths and to such far lands had become a thing of course. It wasn’t always easy and I don’t like it when I tell people what I am doing with my winter and they say “Oh you’re so lucky.” Luck has very little to do with it. To travel you have to be focused. It is your goal, it is the reason you don’t go out and get drunk with your friends every weekend when you’re home anymore, it takes courage and trust me it can be incredibly lonely to be so far away from your friends, to have your identity and history taken away from you is liberating but has its drawbacks. There is no safety net. I can’t call my therapist at the drop of the hat although I am grateful to know should I need her technology allows me to be in pretty quick contact with her.

It was coming again to Sri Lanka in 2017 though that highlighted to me that my Mother is quite right, I am brave and plucky. How much bolder I have become. So much more sure of myself, stronger, the same person but entirely different.

The first moment that this was really brought home to me was when I met Alicja. I haven’t the best track record with girls. I have a handful of very good female friends who I greatly treasure, but it is not unusual for me to find that women generally do not take to me very quickly or sometimes at all. Despite my technique that I adopted in Java earlier this year of when coming across animosity, killing it with kindness, I still find that girlfriends of friends are often not my biggest fan through no hard feelings on my part. It’s just something I now accept and I am happy with my 90% male friendship base. In my view people are people but as with anything we learn by repetition, I was aware of my mind highlighting to me “girl” like I would have to act differently. I didn’t though which is largely due to the fact that Alicja is a beautiful, open person who told me that she had heard that there was a girl staying at Nethu Freedom Cottage and she was excited because all her friends here were male, which is fine, but it’s nice to have a girl around also. And was that my pink longboard? It’s beautiful. From there I knew I liked this girl and we had a quick conversation before I went to my room and she went to the coffee place up the road. The big difference for me in that brief but important conversation was that I didn’t have a niggling negative voice in my head making me self-conscious about my figure, how I stood or spoke, telling me that this girl would not like me. I walked up the stairs to my room and I thought of myself:

Who is this girl? So confident, so approachable and comfortable within herself?!

It’s true that in many ways I barely recognised myself. I have found previously when travelling I have tended to gain a little chubbiness, even when I am surfing a great deal. I have been here for only ten days and I see myself not losing weight but trimming off that belly fat at little or no effort that I can tell. I have not particularly gained strength and definition but I recognise and appreciate what I clearly gained from surf specific training back in the UK over the last few months. I feel it in my surfing; more fluid, able to paddle harder, surf for longer than most whilst being certainly more attune to the wave and where and how it’ll break. To surf the same break three years down the line has great benefit for certain.

Of course I have days that I feel sluggish and ‘fat’ but I recognise that for what it is: because I believe it, it manifests. Out of almost two weeks here I have had one day that I didn’t want to look in the mirror, the rest of the days I can actually look in the mirror and appreciate what I see. Actually unable to find anything I don’t like which is a massive change of perspective for me. This didn’t come by some miracle, it came from self-awareness of what I eat, when and how often to treat myself, the ability to put my trust in someone else to train with (Thanks Angus!) to push myself in those sessions and in my solo sessions running and swimming and surfing, to visualise the goal and believe it achievable.

Most recently in my 2017 Sri Lanka adventure I travelled to Ella where I most noticed the change in my own perspective on the world and I wonder how if I saw the world then, the inner workings if you will as I do now, how things may have turned out very differently. When I travelled to Ella three years ago I was on my own. I had got into the swing of travelling but had got myself into a fling, which I inevitably (being me) got quite attached to, which then broke down pushing me to the decision to take some time out from the coast and as I had to renew my visa in Colombo anway I headed inland. It was in Ella sitting in the 360 café that I received a long and heartfelt email from my ex-boyfriend who was travelling in Indonesia. He was prompted, he said, by the remembrance of our trip there, that everything in Indonesia reminded him of me, the flowers and so on and with this in mind he hoped that we could meet and consider revisiting our relationship when we respectively got back to the UK. He was even considering flying from Indonesia to Sri Lanka. I replied that I had to think. So I did. I took some time out, went on long walks alone. The next day actually who would happen to appear in the café where I was again gaining Wi-Fi but the guy who I had just had an unsuccessful (in my eyes at that time) fling with. In 2014 this all seemed like coincidence to me. If the same thing were to happen to me now, the same peculiar coincidences I don’t doubt for a moment that I would have read into them differently, thought about them differently. I would have put more weight on what the Universe had put in front of me and why. But that was then and this is now. It was a time that I was wrapped up in myself, I didn’t think that the Universe, my connection with people might all be linked somehow, that perhaps everything happened for a reason, but of course at that point I had not read The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo. As it was I went home and thought only of myself, my wants and my needs. I didn’t get back with my ex-boyfriend but planned my next travels, the big trip of 18 months that I was to embark on the next winter and although we may equate selfishness with negativity I cannot see it this way because it was the path that I needed to take to get here. I recognise now the difference between loving and caring for oneself and being self-obsessed but there is no shame in not having known that because we all have to grow into our own ideas and beliefs.

This time I travelled to Ella with two friends who both gave a very unique and enriching je ne sais quoi to the journey. Travelling with people allowed for a cheaper trip, and also for me to sit back and let someone else be the driving force (which proves the beauty of having someone around who likes to be in control, proving further that any negativity you give to a certain personality trait is just that; given by you). It rained a lot. It was much busier than three years ago and I must say that the food which was three times as expensive as on the coast, was bland and small in portion. It was overrun by tourists it seemed with not much to do except two walks, which I remember as being quite lovely, but impossible to attempt with the constant heavy downpour that we experienced, so we went on the train, enjoyed the cooler air and relaxing with an ayuveredic massage and headed back to the coast.

We went to the café where I had received that email from my ex-boyfriend. We did not go there by design but it was where we found ourselves having lunch when we arrived in Ella. Apart from feeling a strange déjà vu when I went to the toilet and recognising the place I did not feel any sort of remorse at remembering fleetingly the circumstances of being there last. Instead I smiled and felt a great affection and reassurance toward “Abby of the past” that everything worked out as it was meant to. I see a shadow of myself sitting in that café three years ago and I feel that I was so much more than three years younger then. Truly I have grown an extortionate amount over the past three years that I feel a great compassion toward the younger, more naïve me travelling on her own for the first time so wrapped up in boys and worried about how others perceived her. To be free now of the belief that my partner or how I am perceived defines me is a great relief and I can smile at how resolutely I had held onto those beliefs and how simply over time those restrictions melted away.

I see now that although I had enjoyed the comfort of travelling with another person, especially one that I deeply loved that it did not force me to grow. Being alone forces you to push yourself. To decide on your own which is the right decision for you at any time and sticking with that decision. It forces you to know yourself deeply, to know when to push yourself, and when to seek comfort. These facts are clear in the development of my surfing in not only how I surf but where I choose to surf and why. A skill that I have developed the most whilst I have been single.

All this I realised in the short time that I have spent in Sri Lanka, with more time ahead of me to revisit experiences as well as an entirely new experience of a trip to India in mid-December. I am grateful for the opportunity to explore my surroundings, other beings and myself; to discover strengths, weaknesses, limits, beauty and pain in all of these.

Just as with re-reading these beloved books, revisiting a previous destination offers a unique insight into oneself; your own developments, the development of the space around you and how you relate to that. It draws more clearly the path that you have paved for yourself, the ways in which you have grown. I suppose that in itself is indication enough for me to download those books and re-read them over the next 5 months that I will be travelling around Asia and see what changes I find.

I’ll take crazy.

I was called ‘crazy’ yesterday.

Like most verbal communication it’s not always what you say but how you say it. My friend Russell calls me a lunatic when I say something weird but this is an affectionate term he uses when I am being intentionally weird and refers of course to my obsessive interest in the moon. ‘Crazy’ is a word my friends and I use to denote a bond, that we are in our own special ways crazy about something.. eg. crazy cat lady, crazy moon lady, crazy weird.

When I was called crazy yesterday it wasn’t meant meanly I am sure but it wasn’t affectionate and it wasn’t to make a connection. It was to create distance. I was being told essentially that this acquaintance of mine (let’s call him Bill) had not hung out with me before because I am crazy.

Bill is a male (I am not pointing this out for any reason but to explain the context of our relationship) who I had years ago had a romantic interest in and he knows that. I do not believe that I have done anything this past summer of being back in the UK to make him think that this is still the case. It was actually Bill who wanted to meet up once I got back home (an arrangement he flaked on) and I was very clear later in the year that I am currently not in a romantic mood for anyone. We were still friends though.

We met up yesterday and hung out and it was easy and chilled I rather enjoyed myself which was not a surprise to me. No mention was made of any sort of romantic connection until when he told me that he is always the one contacting his hometown friends to meet up I replied that for me it was the other way around. That I am often giving him opportunities to hang out and he always flakes. To which he apologised, excused himself as too much of a stoner to socialise and besides “you’re pretty crazy”… 

At the time I didn’t really register the comment but told him he needed to simply think of me as a friend, that he could just think of me as one of the guys. To which he said he couldn’t. That I’m awesome and it just ‘wasn’t our summer…’

I didn’t know what to say. Why did us hanging out have to have some sort of romantic undertone? Why couldn’t we just be mates? Why was he meeting up with me in the first place? The whole thing actually quite amused me and I wasn’t bothered by the exchange because I had enjoyed the rest of my time. It wasn’t until today that I realised what really bothered me about the conversation was being called ‘crazy‘ with the clear insinuation that it was a negative thing. Bill was telling me that I am “too much”.

I refuse to subscribe for a moment to the idea that I am “too much”. “Too much” is the evil twin brother of “not enough” and I am neither of these things. Your shortcomings in handling me are just that: yours. The things we say, judgements we pass on others say a great deal more about us than those we talk about.

In the not so distant past I was wild. I used to get deliriously drunk, fall off stools, climb trees and I have some great stories but I look back and I struggle to believe that I was having fun. Something I was doing was putting myself into situations that allowed me to pursue the attention I was desperately craving. Without going too far into my psyche I’m sure you can imagine that I did not find a cure to my emptiness through either alcohol or the male attention that I found it easier to pursue when I was a few sheets to the wind. And pursue men was indeed what I used to do drunk or otherwise. So passionately that I created my own version of these men who, being in some way unavailable were entirely inappropriate for me.
These days I give myself that comfort through yoga, writing, positive reaffirmation and surrounding myself by good people who encourage my personal growth. Was I and am I still at times unstable? Yes. But these last 6 months have been the most calm and balanced.

I have often been told that I appear to be incredibly confident. The reality is that when I felt awkward in a social situation I would talk. Talk and talk and talk. Nonsense. Because nonsense was better than silence. Being the clown was better than silence. Being weird and strange and crazy was better than silence.  I have learnt to be comfortable in silence. I swapped the non-stop talking for active listening or taking a breathe and looking around the room, people watching and I was surprised to realise that I didn’t feel awkward at all. Yeah, I still talk a lot but I’ve got a lot to say 😉

I spent years believing that I was indeed crazy.  I was tormented by experiences that traumatised me because I never talked about them and years down the line I wondered if I had created them in my mind. I felt disconnected from my friends, from reality. and those were the loneliest years of my life. I feel suppressed by my own thoughts which were dizzying and just went on and on in endless circles.

Everyone is crazy. In some way or another at some time or another everyone on this planet will feel ‘crazy’. But remember you define your own words you can interpret your crazy as you please. In terms of having a mental illness meaning you’re crazy or categorically does not. That’s all I have to say on that one.

You know what I am doing when people call me crazy? I am being open and honest.

I am opinionated and I am educated. I am vibrant and enthusiastic about life and living it to the fullest. I have spent a lot of time and effort working on my issues to not be haunted by my past but to let it inform my present and shape my future. And that makes some people very uncomfortable.

So if that honesty, that passion, makes me crazy I’ll take it: I’m super crazy.

Art Therapy

Recovery from addictive behaviour is a difficult thing. Firstly you have to have come to a place that you’ve looked at yourself hard enough to realise and admit that your behaviours are compulsive, destructive and at the same time, tantalizingly comfortable, familiar. These are the cycles that we create to ultimately protect ourselves and that is human nature: to protect ourselves from trauma. Trauma comes in many forms and let’s be clear here that pain is relative. The important thing is not the trauma itself so much as how you deal with traumatic events. Or don’t as the case may be. You might abuse substances, retreat into a fantasy world, create rules and beliefs that you live your life by, all to ultimately protect yourself. Somewhere along the way you might find that these ways of protecting yourself are actually detrimental to you and you might make the decision to stop.

That’s where I found myself recently.

My therapist asked me, “what will you find, do you think, when you stop ‘acting out’?”

“Boredom.” I replied, after thinking for a time.

“Boredom is not an emotion. Scratch beneath the boredom. What is there?”

“Loneliness.”

Feeling alone is not a great feeling. I believe that almost everyone must know the feeling. The gnawing emptiness. Procrastinating. Of course there are actually plenty of things that you could do, but you don’t really see the point do you? It all seems so pointless. You seem so pointless.

I didn’t actually expect it to come so quickly, but on the first day of abstinence (And yes, I have come to the belief that abstinence is (for me) the only option if I truly want to transform my behaviour) there it was: BOREDOM. A dull, aching boredom.

WITHDRAWAL IS A REAL AND POWERFUL THING. It’s disconnecting. Standing in the water at work I imagine that I could just dissolve into the foam and at that moment I yearn to just disappear and I doubt that anyone would give a damn. It pushes you to self-destruct. It pushes you to pick up something, anything else that you might abuse to save you from embracing your suffering: alcohol, drugs, a kitchen knife (don’t worry, all the knives here are blunt) my replacement binge of choice has been food, and gee isn’t the guilt after smashing an entire pack of mini-rolls just acute enough to have you miserable, lying on the sofa watching episode after episode of How I Met Your Mother?  Exhausted after getting plenty of sleep, and that’s one of my red lights – sleeping too much, when I’m sleeping too much I know I’m depressed. To be honest that’s been a trend for almost two months now which is a really long “down” for me and it almost makes me miss the insomnia.

ISOLATION: Such a tempting route for me right now. But written right there on the list of my ‘Things to do to get through withdrawal’… Don’t isolate. Spend time with safe friends and family members. Safe friends. I’m lucky. I have a lot of friends. The problem is though that some of my friends are of the idea that ‘one drink won’t hurt’ others are on their own destructive journey and I’m not in the right place to hang out with those people. Reaching out isn’t easy. For me reaching out often brings more feelings of guilt. That people have their own shit to deal with. But the paper told me to so I did.

I went to see Jenn and Pete. We had cookies and milk. And you know what, yes cookies are naughty but it wasn’t the sort of naughty that is squirrelling away in my house, stuffing my face guiltily and then feeling so shameful that I am tempted to throw it back up it’s the kind of warm naughty, with friends. There was care, not compulsion in those cookies.

My car is being a bugger. Pete donned some disposable gloves and set to setting my battery right, giving it some juice and generally being a fantastic sort of guy. I have suggested to Jen that she copy and sell Pete’s, she’d make a killing!

Jen had suggested that we play about with some art.

I am not an artist.

I am a writer but art scares me.

Art scares me because I am terrified of failing. The expectations of other people holds me back from even trying.

But Jen is an artist with an incredible talent for teaching and she tempted me with a subject that I could not refuse.

THE MOON.

 

I made that. With heaps of guidance, but I made it. All of it.

I learnt so much. I was entirely consumed by the making of my moon, interspersed with chatting about art, and life and allsorts. And the boredom went. The compulsions went. The guilt went. Without me pushing them away they just went.

I was proud of what I made and I have learnt that the crux of my happiness sits with seeing my worth. Something that I struggle with but slowly, slowly I am beginning to see.

I see potential in my moon. I see an outlet that is mindful and therapeutic, that I don’t have to be amazing at. In fact I never need to show anyone anything that I draw. There is some great freedom in that.

I don’t for a moment think that I am cured of my cravings, that my compulsions will suddenly disappear because I drew the moon. If I have learnt anything through my therapy it is that good things take hard work and time. What this afternoon taught me is not how to ESCAPE my feelings but how to CHANNEL my feelings into something POSITIVE instead of something DESTRUCTIVE.

A beautiful lesson to learn. 

And she didn’t stop there- to further nurture my artistic blossoming Jenn hooked me up with some travel size art supplies. Legend.

Thank you Jen! xx

The road to fruition…

On my 27th birthday (July 2016) I wrote some goals. One of which was to run a half marathon.

This goal, specifically had some intrinsic link to having lost my Grandmother earlier in 2016. To be fair, most everything was at that point intrinsically linked to the loss of my Grandmother.

When I came back to the UK in Spring 2016 I began training for the Bristol Half Marathon. I considered running to raise money for charities that helped people with dementia as that is what my Grandmother suffered with after a stroke. However, although these charities are incredibly worthy, I felt that I wanted to contribute to a charity that I could see the change in.

My Grandmother was, amongst other things in the community known for her involvement in and fundraising for local organisations and charities. I would never suppose myself to be near half the woman that my grandmother was but I was inspired by her to do what I could for the local community. I had for three seasons been lead trading of Crackington Haven Surf Club Juniors.

I began to feel that I wouldn’t run for a charity. That I would just run for me. I’m not a runner and actually the whole idea of running a half marathon makes me feel quite anxious. Furthermore, I have seen my friends complete far more awesome feats for wonderful charities and I feel if I were to ask people to part with their hard earned money it would have to be for something meaningful to me.

It was a month or so after making this decision that my Mother asked me if I shouldn’t run to raise money for The Wave Project.

The Wave Project is an organisation that arranges surf lessons for children and young adults who struggle with anything from anxiety and autism to a physical disability. At Raven Surf School we are lucky enough to work with the The Wave Project. It’s one of my favourite sessions with emphasis on socialising and building confidence. Over the six week course there is a marked change for the better in each child. It’s incredibly rewarding for the instructors and volunteers who donate their time to help us in and out of the water.

I thought about it for a little while and whilst on my long run last week I thought that actually my run deserves to raise money just as much as anything that is a challenge. Perhaps a half marathon is not such a “great feat” but juggling managing a surf club, working 2/3 surf sessions 6 days a week and weekly therapy then to throw in training 6 days a week for a half marathon, that’s a pretty big feat and some days I really feel it. Today marks the half way point of my 12 week training programme that my friend Ruben made for me (thanks Ruben!) which I’m implementing with strength training with Kelvin and the 6am girls 2/3 times a week (depending on sleepiness!).

So, talk about making a short story long… 

In 6 weeks time I will be running the Bristol half marathon for The Wave Project. If you have a penny or a pound spare please sponsor me. If not a kind word of support will probably do me more good!

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/abby-stewart2

Many thanks,
Abby