CAPTAINS LOG: 7th July

LAST week I wasn’t well (don’t worry, it’s not a pity post!) and I spent the at home. Various tests later it turns out that I am still a medical mystery. At 49 years old I remain and probably will always be undiagnosed. By Friday of last week I had self-diagnosed via the Tinterweb various illnesses, none of which were life threatening but all of which were in their own way debilitating. Do I actually have any of them? Fuck knows.

AFTER a pretty rough week, which left me feeling pretty pants and lacking in energy, I had a couple days to prepare for a few days away with work. Did I want to go? Honestly? No, I didn’t. Not just because I didn’t feel on top of my game but always because I was worried and I was starting to panic. My ‘Rants and Big Pants’ ‘wife’ told me that it would do me good. I took her at her word without really believing it.

I have worked for my company for 17 years which is a looooong arse time. Do I know everything I need to know? Probably not, but I know a fair bit. The panic didn’t come from a place of incompetence but of self-esteem. What did I have to offer the group of people I would be with? What, if anything, would I be able to contribute?

WHEN we arrived at the idilic farm in deepest Somerset in a blaze of blue sky and sunshine, I found myself surrounded by a gorgeous group of 40 plus people (99.9% of which were girls with an average age of 25). And I am not kidding when I say they were gorgeous. If I didn’t feel like shit beforehand, I did in that moment.

THE brief had told us we would be camping (not tents – yay! But pods and lodges) but we could, if we wanted to, leave the cosmetics at home and just enjoy the ride. Now I am not a rule breaker so I duly left all make up on the counter in my kitchen at home.

THE first thing I noticed after the gorgeousness was the glorious coloured bodies. It was like being in a commercial for fake tan. Now that makes me sound a critical, but that’s not the case. I just can’t apply the stuff so there I was with my chubby legs that resembled a plucked, raw chicken. My newly purchased shorts went on with a t-shirt provided and off I went to join the group for the first activity.

WE sat in a massive open marquee on cushions and blankets and you really feel your age when they tell you to get up and it takes you five minutes longer than everybody else. Fit I am not.

WE were placed in groups of 6 people and I fell on my feet with our group. What a bloody lovely bunch! They didn’t make me feel like I feared I would…the out of place person within the group.

SO where was all these feelings coming from? Why was I so worried? I know that I now view myself very differently than perhaps I should but I am trying (so very trying) to let that shit go.

I am now 49 years old. I hate it. Although its better than the alternative, which is not getting to 49 ,so I guess every cloud does have a silver lining after all!

SINCE my birthday, I don’t feel any different, I don’t look any different and nothing has really changed but something inside me has flipped. I feel panicked. I feel a bit scared if I’m honest. I don’t really understand how, in what feels like a blink of an eye, that I’m now nearly half a fucking century!

I desperately implore somebody, anybody, to sort out a time machine because I want to start again!

I have a few fears, namely heights, spiders and sharks. Two out of three were not due to make an appearance in Somerset but one activity was canoeing. The trouble is when you are scared of sharks is that it makes you generally scared of water that isn’t clear and we were told the river bed was approximately 12 foot down. If you tipped the canoe you would not be touching the bottom. Considering we were wearing a rather fetching life jacket thing, I’m not sure that would even be possible. But getting on the water had my big, old chicken legs shaking in my Primark trainers. I volunteered to go at the back of the canoe in a team of 3, as I’m not a natural leader in life let alone a boat..canoe, whatever!

I can say with my hand on my heart that during our time on the water I haven’t laughed like that for probably a couple of years. I totally lost it along with my lovely boat buddies. We were LITERALLY crying. We couldn’t steer the bloody thing and hit (HEAD ON!) the river bank 16 times by the time we finished. Little did we know that there was a drone catching the action! We must have looked like a human pin-ball game. At one point, we were stuck in a tree…actually in the tree. Now, it’s fair to say I am a swearer but I don’t think I have ever sworn so much in my life.

AND that my lovelies was my turning point in how I was feeling. I no longer felt like I didn’t have a place. I no longer felt that I couldn’t or didn’t have anything to contribute (team swearer!) and suddenly I felt like I fitted in. By the time we got out I realised that I had found two new friends.

ISN’T it funny how it takes something innocuous to change your train of thought? That it would be possible to bond over something as ridiculous as paddling a canoe?

THE two day retreat left me with more questions than I had answers, despite having a brilliant time with lovely people.

IT gave me a renewed sense of self. I saw myself not as the old one in the group but a team member. We did various activities over the two days and I felt both the talking part and the ‘lets get those chicken legs moving’ parts equally beneficial to my self worth.

I now find myself really thinking of the bigger picture. How I impact my day and what part my thoughts, feelings and attitude play in how I feel.

IT has given me a moment of reflection and I quite like what I see. I am not looking at a person who just goes to work to make a living. I am looking at somebody who still has something to offer and I admit, that long term, it may not be where I am now.

I now see that it is time to invest in myself, not just time but money too. And I need to do this as I don’t know how much negativity I can take long term which unfortunately, is what my current job is about.

AND why shouldn’t I, even at 49 years old, want something more for myself? Something that will bring me total satisfaction? Why shouldn’t I just want to do it for myself? There is no reason at all that I can think of.

SO instead of feeling the panic rise over a life running away at a million miles per hour I have started to look at the possibilities in store for me for the foreseeable future. I used to think I was miserable by nature. I’m not. The two days away this week showed me that. The comments I got from other people showed me that. So now is the time to put my Primark trainers back on and walk to the start line. I don’t know what the finish line looks like, but that’s okay.

COME hell or high water, with or without a canoe, I’ll get there and I will get some shit done. Because you are never too old, never too jaded or cynical to start again. It’s about finding the end of your comfort zone which is really no comfort at all but break through that bastard and re-set the parameters.

SO if you are like me and thought your future was all mapped out and that filled you with dread, take a look at yourself. Take a really good look. Find what kicks your heart and brain into gear, find a paddle and start rowing like the clappers!

BIG SNOGS
Kitty xxx

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