Julie Hayes on Dealing With Mental Blocks: Get in The F*cking Water

I have a new mantra called ‘Get in the f.cking water, Julie.’ 

My history has placed boundaries and blocks on me that are now no longer useful. Motherhood and grandmothering made me a watcher, not a participant and I found myself thinking I’m bored (not dull, happy with dull), but bored.

Through circumstances (age, illness) I had withdrawn from the simple things that made me feel alive, rain on my face, cold on my nose and the feel of water on my body. Little things that energise and clear the grey spaces in my brain to make way for laughter. 

I had withdrawn to be consistently comfortable. In that comfort, I found the enemies of older life’s enjoyment creeping in, negativity, cynicism, resentment, rage, grumpiness, selfishness, and tentacles of dissatisfaction. 

Where solitude became loneliness, dullness became boring and what were once positives became negatives. Products of too much navel-gazing and all of my creation. 

So… here I am, breaking a boundary about covering up that served me well as a young girl and kept me safe that I no longer need, haven’t needed since I left home at 17. 

I dropped the dressing gown of death at 7:30 in the morning braving it up to ‘GET IN THE F.CKING WATER JULIE.’

It doesn’t have to be big things or even many things (I have accepted I’m not going to be a movie star or climb Mount Everest ) it’s the little things, boundaries, and comforts that I need to cross or push against occasionally to still feel like…like…me.

I have this feeling that ageing is not for the faint-hearted, and if I want to enjoy it I think I have to continue to be a bit brave to retain my sense of self.

Is anyone else finding this or do you have a magic pill? If you do I’ll have a dozen bottles emptied into a caramel frappe with a good splash of grog, any grog will do. 

I’m a terrible swimmer.