I'm back.
And I'm a little less broken than I was two days ago, which is a very good thing.
A few days with "my tribe" have done wonders for my battered soul and my feelings of insignificance and uselessness as a writer, even though I write for a living. I've got about 5000 words done over the weekend which is good. I've been writing from the scar, and not the wound, as we have been reminded time and time again. (Basically, don't write about the trauma, write about the situation and the feelings after you've processed it all.)
The thing I like most about these retreats is that I get to hang out with people I don't get to hang out with in my real life. I love my friends, love them dearly, but these people are my tribe. It's great to have open, honest, out there conversations with people, giving different inputs and ideas. We all have very different lives. I was hanging out with a group of 40 something Mums - again, a bit strange for me, but my childless state wasn't seen as a barrier.
The other decision I came to is that I seriously need to cap my hours at work. I've known this, but I've reached the end of my tether, and it's time for the stupid hours to stop. I know when I go back in tomorrow it's going to be lunacy and I have some big deadlines this week, but I've got to cut back. For my health and sanity. I don't want to be in a position where I feel like falling down in a puddle of tears when I get to relax again.
My biggest takeaway from the weekend came from the annual ritual "Bathing of the Lunatics", where a mob of us go for a naked dunk in the sea first thing on the Sunday Morning of the retreat. I nearly didn't make it this time. It was blowing a gale and it looked a bit rough. I was standing around with the group without my sarong saying ,"Nah, too windy." Then FOMO got the better of me as the group took off down the hill. I ran back to my room, grabbed my sarong to be used as a towel, shoved my pyjama bottoms on and caught the group up on the beach.
What they don't tell you about going skinny dipping is just how liberating it is. Okay, yes, tossing your naked body into the Southern Ocean with a group of equally middle aged, naked women is a strange thing to do, but if feels BLOODY EXCELLENT. I commented to one of the throng who was coming out the same time as me, "This will sound strange, but doing this, I for the first time in probably forever, feel beautiful. Alive and beautiful." It's a good feeling. There should be more of it.
I know life is not a retreat. I know I don't get the special treatment I get down there very often (like having the Turkish Delight from the chocolate box delivered to my possie, or having Ash serve me up the crunchy bits from the cauliflower cheese)
But all this means a lot.
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