Bananas on change and resilience

Some mornings I throw a banana peel over the fence into my neighbours’ garden.

Kielder Valve Tower on Portra 160

After five months away, I’m returning to this newsletter with intention. It probably comes as no surprise that perfectionism kept me away - as the subscriber numbers started to grow, so did my fear of sending out imperfect newsletters. But recently I’ve felt a pull to start writing here again, and so that’s what I’ll do.

This first post back is a reworking of a journal entry. All imperfect and half-formed thoughts welcome.

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Some mornings I throw a banana peel over the fence into my neighbours’ garden. It’s as fun as it sounds, in the way that all permissible rebellions are fun. Sometimes, Skippy tries to chase after it, haphazardly scaling the fence. One time I threw it and he appeared atop the fence from their side almost instantly. I might have hit him with a flying banana peel.

There was one day a few weeks ago when I couldn’t be bothered to throw the banana peel. The week before, three days into my banana throwing spree, my neighbours came back after a few days away and excitedly showed me a photo of three banana peels arranged in a straight line on their back lawn. They asked me how I’d done it. Then they said they had a present for me, which turned out to be a food waste bin that just needed a clean. I’ve yet to receive the bin, and the peels keep going over the fence.

I stopped throwing banana peels for a couple of weeks. Maybe I had something else for breakfast or just didn’t have the time, but then considering getting back into the routine felt like a kind of intrusion. My neighbours asked for the banana peels for their compost heap, but it’s still difficult not to feel like I’m committing some sort of harm, some terrible, mean act.

Change takes a lot of getting used to. Our bodies are so resistant to it. Things take weeks, months, years to become habit, to no longer use up conscious thought. And on top of that, you must learn the way mind and body speak to each other. Learning their language is hard. It takes time.

I’ve been thinking almost constantly about the changed rhythm of my life since taking the next step in my therapist training. This new course is two years and is the one that qualifies me. I can officially call myself a trainee therapist, now being a student member of the BACP and due to start placement with real clients next year.

My life hasn’t changed that dramatically, but still, it is a change, and change chafes. Having less time to read books is probably the hardest change, and I’m only half joking. The biggest change is all the work - the need to be regimented and dedicated with my time, the need to choose which spinning plate I’m dropping today, the need to work on my personal growth, always. As much as I want kids, I currently feel lucky I don’t have any. I am enough responsibility on my own.

Would I say I’m feeling resilient? Certainly more resilient than I ever have before. But what even is resilience? I’m currently weathering a storm of my own making. A nice storm - one of those storms where you’re safely tucked up at home - but a storm nonetheless. Open a window too wide and it might blow free of its hinges. I stay inside and focus only on what I can control.

I’ve built a foundation of resilience over the past two years, but I couldn’t tell you how except to say that I’ve strapped myself into the relentless ride of simply doing it for fear of failing. Three years ago, I was wondering how anyone even went about becoming a therapist and now I’m halfway there. I have both changed irrevocably and not at all. I am still me, but I can withstand more now, accept more, accept me, fear less. Again, if someone asked me to pinpoint exactly how I have done this, I couldn’t tell them explicitly except to say that the only way out is through - through it all, good and bad. You spend years trying to fix your anxious, self-sabotaging mind, and then you do it without thinking. You only notice, one day, that you have stopped thinking those same dark, repetitive thoughts. Someone has done a bit of rewiring in your head and it turns out it was you.

I threw a banana peel over the fence this morning. It did a brilliant cartwheel, and then I nearly mirrored it when Skippy rubbed about my legs and tried to trip me. I intend to do it all again tomorrow.

the mumble and muse. is a Substack newsletter from recovering perfectionist, therapist in training and writer, Caitlin Evans. You can subscribe for free.