Out of my mind

A catch up with you all

It had been a shitty few weeks.

They say it comes in threes, and maybe the knee injury came first, I don’t remember. As I lay in a heap at the bottom of a flight of stone steps by a grim canal, the scene was reminiscent of something from a Ken Loach film. I peered up and noticed a young couple hovering above me.

’Cause the most spectacular falls always have an audience don’t they?

They were assessing me the way I used to look at middle aged people when they took a tumble, you know, concerned. I remembered once hearing;

‘young people fall, older people have falls’.

Yep. I was now at that stage. Ouch!

There I stayed, grimacing and feeling like an upside down tortoise. A silly cartoon one.

But this wasn’t funny.

I ended up in A and E. Ligament damage. For some time after, I climbed stairs making noises usually reserved for certificate 18’s, but there were other things going wrong too. Things at home had been particularly difficult (police✅ social worker✅), an expensive appliance broke, a tooth came out…….

You name it, everything seemed to be going tits up.

As I write that, I scold myself;

“C’mon….not like anyone died or anything is it, Julie?”

But I guess it’s all relative.

It was January too.

Like ‘Pilot’, I was sick and tired of it hanging on me.

January with its long nights and bitter cold. January, the Aunt Spiker of the mint months. Its flowerless face of stewing sky and spindly branches seemed to make mocking smiles of every crescent moon.

And then there was ‘the world’.

This big ’ole spinning rock with its bullshit politics and puppet governments, its manufactured wars and AI phoney baloney.

One night, I lay there early hours, unable to sleep, a familiar story. My gammy leg ached as I read yet another downbeat post online.

Thinking.

Thinking.

ThINKing.

The ink of think sprang up in an ugly black splodge. I felt it smearing and staining both clarity and sanity, a leaking pen I just couldn’t keep the fucking lid on.

They were the sort of thoughts that swooped in, the way screeching owls storm bare barns, seizing my peace, hour after hour.

But as I lay there, tears streaming down my face, I had a ‘flip the switch’ moment.

“No”

A voice inside me said.

“This stops RIGHT NOW!”

The urgency clicked.

I couldn’t stop certain situations but had to stop spiralling.

An image came to me. A vision of my chattering mind and weary heart displaced by action in an ‘Archimedes bath’ kinda way. If I concentrated on ‘doing’, ‘thought’ and ‘feeling’ would surely have to gush over the sides like excess water. They’d be crowded out, they’d have to fuck off.

I instinctively knew I had to get ‘out of my mind’ and ‘into’ my body.

So I did.

I have.

For around six weeks now, I have practised the art of doing instead of overthinking or feeling too much. Busying myself. At first I couldn’t do much because of my injury, but I’ve gradually taken on more physical chores and exercise. Brain oriented tasks too, but those that aren’t emotional or complicated. When listening to music I’ve made a conscious effort not to indulge the sort that has memories attached. Cause music always sets us off, doesn’t it? It’s a fucker.

I began turning my phone off at night (radical eh?). I came off social media. It was hard at first. Would *insert random person* think I’d unfriended them or had stopped caring? Would so-and-so think I no longer supported their channel? And.……how would I live without memes!!!

Tough. I needed the break. I’d say ‘reset’ but well……..connotations n all that…..

I began to re-evaluate my priorities and practised finishing the sentence “I want to be the sort of person who…..”. I read and listened to lots of stuff around the plasticity of the brain and forming new habits. Instead of feeling powerless, I began to realise the greatest power I had, was not over situations but over myself and where I put my attention and energy.

Then there was influence. Where I lacked power, I still had influence. And the best way of affecting others, as we know, is to be the change we want to see.

It’s said that we only change when staying in the same situation or state of mind becomes unbearable. The false comfort of zoning out is a silent killer, a cushion that slowly smothers us.

We’re killing our creativity with doomscrolling.

We’re killing our concentration span by watching dumbed down shit punctuated by vacuous adverts and begging bowl bleats.

We’re killing our belief in the human kindness we know to be true by reading the news; a nauseating concoction of polluted propaganda.

We’re killing the natural rhythm of our bodies by filling it with the eerie, artificial glow of tech devices.

The leisurely carriage we ride in as we zombie through life, without ceremony suddenly becomes a pumpkin and we find ourselves in the cold and on our arse.

Damn! How did I get HERE!?

But we CAN get our shit together.

Each and every one of us. We have to.

The last few weeks I have felt revitalised and focused. Calmer. Stronger.

I don’t have it sussed by any means. I know there’s always another crash around the corner, ’cause that’s life, but what I’ve learned, is that trying, fighting back, whatever you want to call it, always sounds like more effort, but actually, not trying takes up far more energy.

As we near full moon, I realise that whilst my cup may not always runneth over, it’s not quite the chipped empty mug it felt like a couple of months ago. I raise mine to you, in solidarity at the ups and downs of life. May we all grow stronger and prosper.

PS: I appreciate everyone who is still here, subscribing/reading my rambles. I paused my paid subscription as I wasn’t writing anything but may reopen it depending how creative I start feeling. ‘Buy me a coffee’ seems like the best and fairest way to show gratitude financially right now should anyone wish to.