It's been a while since I've posted a blog that I wrote during my high school days, but this seems thoroughly appropriate, and it's one of the few posts that I still actually like. About 20 months ago, I stopped being an insane child and decided to listen to doctors. I stopped doing outdoor sports, and worked on exercises given to me by my multiple physios instead. I began the long and horrible process of having 4 joint reconstructions, spent countless weeks on crutches or in a sling and slowly, but surely, slumped into a state of depression. It's not something I've told many people, I don't really like to talk about it, but in the past few months something has changed and I'm aware that depression is not something to be ashamed of. I didn't let myself stay there, I fought it every step of the way, and a few weeks ago I suddenly started to become myself again. There'd been stages where I'd been better, but better was never quite me. The feeling of hopelessness that it was only ever going to be just 'better' made it worse and worse, all I wanted was to get out and be myself - the crazy insane child who was constantly out and being active and doing the things that I loved because I knew my joints were fucked anyway. Now I've decided to go back to that and it's like my personality has come back, I feel like myself again and even though my emotions still hang on a tenuous balance, I feel lighter, like my life is my own again.
With this being said, I've decided to re-blog this (with some slight amendments). It gives me hope. It puts a cheeky smile back on my face, but more importantly, it has made me me again, instead of a person who hardly recognises themself.
So to the wind, the sand, the green grass and the sea...
...it's just you and me baby, you and me.
People often wonder why I don't follow doctors orders and go surfing or kayaking or running, and while I do say that it's because of the natural adrenalin that flows through my veins, it's also because I live in a world and a society where there is so, so much pressure to do well and become something or someone, and for me, the way to escape this is by doing crazy, physically challenging things where it doesn't matter if I'm a success or a failure. It's my personal way of escaping my family who expects so much of me, the pressure I place on myself to do well at uni, my friends who I love so much but just sometimes get a bit annoying and everything else that is playing havoc with my emotions and with my brain. It's my escape because when I'm out there, in the ocean or the sand or running on the green grass, there's no one expecting me to do something amazing. When I go for a surf, I know that even if the only waves that carry me are the ones that are pummelling me beneath their rough surface, that no one will be angry or disappointed when I trudge once again on the sadly solid ground. When I'm running around the oval inhabited by ants and birds and beetles and shrubs, I'm free from the expectations of everyone and everything, and I can simply enjoy the cool wind sweeping against my face and the floating sensation that follows.
But there's more than just that. When I go for a surf, I'm amazed that there is a single body of water with hundreds of thousands of living things swimming around inside of it, and that there's somehow still room for so many oblong bumps to rise out of the water and carry me and my surfboard (whether above or below) for a few meters before I either get my head up to suck in the oxygen or before I jump back into the blue expanse triumphantly. When I've finished my run and have collapsed onto the ant-filled grass I can be amazed that such tiny creatures exist so perfectly. That is, I can be amazed until one of them bites my back and leaves me with a sore, itchy red lump. Either way, every time I go surfing or running, I'm allowed to just be me. To be a version of me who has forgotten about the world and instead to be filled with liberating freedom and wonder.
So, when people ask me why I don't follow doctors orders and go for a surf or a run, I tell them that it's because of the wind, the sand, the green grass and the sea.
It's just me and them baby. Them and me.
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