When I awoke this morning, I felt like porridge.

No, not that I desired oats and milk, sweetened with honey, but that I physically and mentally felt like porridge. I'm headachey and my muscles are heavy. I feel gloopy.

Do you ever wake up and feel heavy? A little sad, perhaps, or suffering ennui, that beautiful French word that sums up 'a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement'¹. I know you know.

Perhaps it's because the days are stretching out long and lonely now that Jamie's back at work. Or perhaps it's still that grief hangover. Or that I'm getting old, and I don't wake with the vigour and vim I did ten years ago.

I bruised myself pretty heartily last week surfing - slammed my thigh down onto the rail of my board in the shorebreak and rendered it purple and yellow. An afternoon of arnica and ice kept the worst at bay, but it knocked other things around too - my ego, perhaps. My fearlessness. And my lower back and hips felt bruised too, as if they'd been knocked out of whack too. It takes me longer to recover these days.

Fuck, you're only 53, I tell myself. Pull yourself out of the porridge, my love, and get on with the day. But - I protest - can't I just stay in bed and skim disconsolately through reels on Tik Tok, watching other people's tragedies? No, I say back to myself. Get the fuck up. Get showered. Have a good breakfast. Go for a walk.

I'm my own worst enemy, and my own best friend.

So I do - I have a shower, make actual porridge, not the one with tears and despair but the one with vanilla collagen powder and probiotic psyllium and strawberries and yoghurt. I have a tea - not a coffee, as my adrenal glands aren't happy, which is maybe why feeling not great, and get in the van. I walk five kilometres, cliff path one way, beach on the way back.

My head begins to feel less porridge-y.

I go for a surf, despite my pain, letting my thigh soak in the cooling water. I chat to mates out in the water.

At home I make a quick laksa for lunch, go talk to the chooks, pull a few weeds, water the seedlings.

Take that, ennui. Take that, porridge head.

Some days you just got to get on with things, and the goodness will follow. You're your own best friend, and know what to tell yourself. The trick is to listen.

With Love,

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