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Hey Reader,

I’ve recently made surfing my entire personality and so naturally I’m spending a lot of time searching surf-related stuff and going down YouTube wormholes to watch absolute batshit but talented riders slide down horrifyingly large waves without — somehow — dying.

Apropos of absolutely nothing, my phone-Google tried to autofill one of my searches with “do surfers look really old?”

And I thought: wtf?

Then I clicked it because of course I did. I spend more time than I should or want to worrying about looking old, being old, and whether people think I’m old.

Occupational hazard of having beautiful young friends, I guess. And living in this current timeline.

I’ve tried so many lotions and potions.

I’m obsessive about putting sunblock onto my body even though I can’t bear the sensation of it (we also have skin cancer in our family and I don’t want THAT thank you very much).

I bought this stupid magical light-and-massage device for my face that Joe mocked me relentlessly for which is honestly fair enough: I used it for three days then went what in the ever-loving BS patriarchal body standards am I doing and stuffed it in the back of the cupboard where it belongs, making me feel guilty for the plastic consumption and carbon footprint of the whole thing. Since when did homeopathic nonsense make it into the technodevices market? Ugh. AND SINCE WHEN DID I FALL FOR THIS NONSENSE?

Anyway, I was bobbing up and down waiting for the next wave at Llangennith at the weekend and feeling absolutely at peace with the entire world, because that’s what being in the ocean will do for you, and I had a bit of an epiphany.

What an absolute WASTE OF TIME it is worrying about this shite. I get to hang out in the ocean with my board and my pipefish and my mate and my 47-year-old body that is really bloody strong and lets me surf and do trapeze and gymnastics and hike and lift very heavy weights and stand up without using my hands and why on EARTH am I worrying about what that body looks like to strangers?

Especially when it’s pretty bloody gorgeous anyway.

Then I looked back at some pics of myself in my 20s later on, and was like OMG I WAS STUNNING. Wish I’d seen it then, ey?

So I’m definitely not going to spend the next 40-odd years trying to achieve some ridiculously unattainable pedo-inspired patriarchal beauty standard thanks very much and letting my inevitable failure get in the way of enjoying my time in the sunshine.

I’ll keep protecting my skin and my body from sun damage, of course.

But I’m letting go of everything else.

Because joy doesn’t come from trying to attain the unattainable. It comes from living fully into the person you are, have been, and want to become.

This applies to writing, too, btw if you were wondering how I was going to segue my little life lesson into a writing lesson.

When we’re all surface-gloss and worrying about whether we sound smart enough, clever enough, or likeable enough, we miss the point of the whole exercise, which is to connect with another human being and say, “I see you. Do you see me?”

If that sounds like something you’d like to do more of — falling in love with writing and creativity again, and letting go of the nonsense that keeps us trapped — let’s talk. Because my coaching programme isn’t only for people who want to write books. It’s for people who want to WRITE.

TTFN,

Vicky 🫡

p.s. Oh, and that magical body machine at the gym told me the other day that I have a metabolic age of 32, so after all that worrying, I’m doing alright bro.

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