invisible me happy
One Month A Swim: April | on turning 50 | last call for the SELKIE CIRCLE
One Month A Swim is a monthly update, where I look back on the month that was through my sea swimming, but also through the things that caught my eye and ears, and most importantly, my heart. If you’re new to Another World is Possible, you are so welcome! And if you’re not so new, thank you for being here!
Last call! the SELKIE CIRCLE
Let yourself be held by the seal-woman’s story on a 7-week online journey inspired by the seven stages of the Selkie’s tale.
We’re starting on 8th May and there are a few places left!
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I was already half awake when the alarm chimed at 6am. My eyes jolted open. Pink dawn light drew a wavy line on the ceiling above the blackout lining. I slipped out from under the duvet and pried open the curtain to look outside. Some dark cloud and a promising glow on the eastern sky. “It’s a nice morning,” I announced, turning to Brian, “let's go!”
For my birthday, I wanted a sunrise swim. It had been too long since our last swimrise – so long I couldn’t remember.
All was quiet and the morning air was damp when we slipped out of the silent house, treading the familiar path down to the cove. We arrived to a festival of grey cloud, golden light and blue sky over the rushing sea.
In the end, the sun didn’t pop out of the sea, instead rising higher and glowing brighter, until it starburst through a break higher up in the clouds and painted the sea with a trail of auburn light. I smiled. Happy birthday to me.
My first ever birthday swim was when I turned 45 – a sunny, solo swim, with only my daughter for company, one month exactly after Ireland went into full covid lockdown.
When I turned 46, I asked for a swimrise for my birthday, and we all walked down to the cove, the six of us, and the kids lit a camp fire on the beach while Brian and I went for a lush swim in a pink sea.
When I turned 47, I swam on a deserted Irish island with Brian and our daughter, while not one but five grey seals watched us bounce in the green waves of Trá Bán, the only beach on Great Blasket.
When I turned 48, I shared a swim with my seafriend Joanne as another Seagirl celebrated her 40th with a beach party.
When I turned 49, just back from a solo few days back home in France, I heaved myself on the mossy, slimy concrete steps at the cove, and I dived in the churning sea, for the first time of the year.
“I love that you are celebrating 50 so thoroughly, Annette!”
said in response to my poem Where I Am From.I don’t feel sad or downbeat about this milestone. While everyone around me talks about getting older as a nuisance, and looks back on their younger years with a rose-tinted yearning for their lost youthfulness and insouciance, I am enjoying and embracing 50.
The reason for that? 50 feels like a liberation.
Let me explain.
I’m on the cusp of menopause, which is the stage at which women allegedly become invisible. But invisible to who?
To the male gaze, that’s who.
Sweet holy relief! I am utterly done with the male gaze. These days, when a man checks me out on the street, my cheeks flush with barely contained anger and I have to stop myself from giving him the two fingers – because I see it for the micro aggression that it is.
Granted, this doesn’t happen very often these days. I may be becoming invisible and irrelevant in the patriarchy’s eyes, but it’s a loss I’m not grieving. Because I never wanted this kind of attention in the first place.
I have always wanted to be seen and known – as a human, not a mere sexual object for the world to gawk at and assess my worth on. And so losing this feels a lot like liberation. I don’t have to conform and perform femininity anymore, which means I’m free to be visible on my own terms. And this feels so good!
This is unbecoming, and it is an initiation by fire: the hot flushes burning up what still tethers me to patriarchal narratives. I will be pretty pleasing passive no more. I’m done writing inside the lines, the invisible lines drawn to contain and control me, and all of us.
This is what turning 50 is about: enjoying the freedom of aging on my own terms, preferably ungracefully. Getting older and acquiescing to the full cycle, to the idea that in the decay of my old, patriarchy-restricted selves, in the compost of all the skins I’ve worn that didn’t fit, are the seeds of new growth.
Happy birthday, Brian said as we floated in the shining sea, beneath a golden blue sky.
I’m 50! I replied.
Glowingly 50. That’s me.
Friends,
As ever, thank you for spending time with my words – it truly means the world!
In other birthday news, one of my presents was a place at the inaugural All-Weather Words writing retreat (my first ever!!) with
, at the end of May. To say that I can’t wait would be the understatement of the year!Until next time… Please mind yourself and each other in these strange and trying times.
Much love,
Annette
join us in the SELKIE CIRCLE
On the subject of ill-fitting skins and changing the story of who we are, there are a few places left for the SELKIE CIRCLE, starting on 8th May.
Please help me share the word. I can’t wait to meet you all!
Let yourself be held by the seal-woman’s story as we explore each stage together through reflective and transformative questions.
In April I loved…
Touched Out: Motherhood, Misogyny, Consent and Control, by
(2023)A book so powerful I had to pause between chapters to digest its unflinching truths. This is a feminist must-read.
Hope – A Scrapbook, a post by
ofStarting with “the comfort of hopelessness”, Catriona’s unintended research deep-dive asserts that “people who grapple with hope are not faint-hearted”. What an honour to have my words (from Hope is a circle of women) included in this incredible piece about hope and what it means in these uncertain times.
Clearing, a timely poem by Morgan Farley that I intend to read next Sunday at the Bealtaine women’s circle on the beach here in Greystones.
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Annette! I had goosebumps reading this beautiful post to celebrate your 50th birthday. Not because I was imagining that cold Irish Sea in which you immerse yourself, but because of your dreamy writing that brings me right into those choppy, pink waters with you. I loved reading about the ways you marked your birthday these past six years in the sea. It is so moving that you make that pleasure a priority for yourself, and so inspiring. And that writing retreat... wow!!! Sounds absolutely lush and I just know you are going to have a magical experience. I have never been on one so you will have to let me know how it goes. Very much looking forward to joining you for the Selkie Circle...what a fire-fuelled wonderful era of expansion you are moving into! I am here for it sister x
More importantly we become visible to ourselves ….. our body ensures we become connected to it again in such a profound way. The hormones that have attached us to the needs of others,(oxytocin primarily) drastically reduces, and we find ourselves liberated . Thus we start to question in a way that perhaps we have not before… the reduction of testosterone and thus reduction in libido means we no longer feel the need to squeeze our bodies into ‘sexy clothes’ and our waistbands can also become more flexible and unrestrained! Bliss!!!