Hormone Replacement Therapy - Just a Sunny Place to Wander
Notes from a Tenerife Sunlounger
Less than optimal; that’s how the doctor described my Vitamin D status.
Doctors are a conservative bunch, so when I hear them say, “…less than optimal”
…what I actually hear is…
“Sorry Mr Venus you’re dying a slow, winter-filled death”.
And so it is, that I’m lying here on a sun lounger on the island of Tenerife.
A week into my holiday, but still not geographically orientated; holed up as I am, in a hotel with everything I need, and no desire to leave the plastic confines of the resort.
In my head, I know I’m some ways off the western coastline of Africa.
In my body, I’m safely packaged inside a packaged family holiday with set meal times and walled in horizons.
It’s a million miles from the, dare I say it, ‘Authentic’, backpacking holidays of my past, but it feels exactly where me and my family need to be right now.
Given that vitamin D is a hormone and it’s not readily available in most foods, I’m chalking this holiday up as hormone replacement therapy.
Because vitamin D can be synthesized in adequate amounts by most mammals if they get enough sunlight, it is not essential and therefore is technically not a vitamin.[3] Instead it can be considered a hormone, with activation of the vitamin D pro-hormone resulting in the active form, calcitriol, which then produces effects via a nuclear receptor in multiple locations.[3]
What is a holiday?
Whilst I’m very much here for the sun, I can’t help but notice all the ways holidays are restorative.
A holiday pulls you in both new, and old directions (and if you’re travelling with kids it pulls you in a million directions but that’s just a given)
New, as in novel; good for the brain and establishing new neural pathways…new plants…new birds…new signs…new language…new customs.
…and old, as in, nostalgic - a resurrection of young Me; strong, confident, carefree… the world at my feet and adventures to be had.
Speaking of nostalgic; Did you ever have your mind and tastebuds blown wide open by discovering Spanish Fanta Lemon? 🍋
A Holiday from Oneself
In many ways, I feel like I’m taking a holiday from myself.
And I can’t begin to tell you what a relief that is.
Two thousand miles away from home and 1,580 nautical miles from my patterns of thinking…
1500 miles from my rumination about what supplements will serve me best.
1500 miles from my rumination about what time to do my red light therapy
1590 miles from my rumination about how I got so sick and whether I’ll ever be the healthy version of myself that I was so familiar with
1500 miles from my rumination about my rumination
The Land of Our Ancestors
Not only have I left my old thinking behind in the UK, I’m meeting new forms of thinking embedded in the landscape here.
The land is arid and the plants spiky.
I won’t pretend to know what affect this has on my psyche, but I can say, I’m having different thoughts and different dreams too.
No more or less mad, than my English dreams, but different nonetheless.
And sometimes all you need is ‘different’, to break the spell (or maybe even complete the spell) of an errant thought.
Errant Knights much like my errant thoughts wander the land in search of validation. Don Quixote(c. 1868) by Honoré Daumier
Versions of Ourselves
How was school for you?
It was a very mixed bag for me. Nothing too dramatic either way, good or bad.
Ultimately it pretty much felt like a big waste of time, although I did take a few things with me into adulthood.
Like the time our religious education teacher asked us to figuratively line up all the photos that had ever been taken, or would ever be taken, of ourselves and…here comes the interesting bit…pick up the photo that holds the real you.
I feel like I’m three decades deep into that koan and still no further forward with it.
It’s a bit of a head scratcher and no mistake.
The point of a koan isn’t to figure it out of course.
The point is that, if you give it your full attention for long enough, your mind sees the useless nature of the question, gets bored and very sensibly gives up trying.
Putting down your thinking and figuring means you can get on with the more important stuff in life…like being in the garden or drinking a cup of tea
Holiday Me
Holiday Me is more carefree but is this the real me?
We could say this more carefree version of myself is unreal or temporary, but we could also say that about my UK version of self.
It’s All Temporary
Having just said goodbye to my old man for the last time (a little before Christmas), I’m acutely aware of how temporary even the most stubborn versions of ourselves really are.
A Life Less Optimal
The current version of me likely has more vitamin D and that’s probably as much as I can hope for.
I’m sure all the old patterns of me are waiting for when I get home.
It’s not about dodging versions of myself. More like meeting the different versions of myself from a more gracious place.
Maybe after welcoming all the versions home I can leave them all to get on with it whilst I go enjoy a cup of tea in the garden.
3 decades deep and no further forward, I love that line! Made me chuckle and I really needed a good giggle right now😂🤣
I’m envious you got to take a holiday from the uk version of yourself. I haven’t managed that in the last few years. Attacks are far milder yet the emotions are ever surfacing and seem like to spill out all over my sun lounger 🏖️🙃