I went on a yoga retreat last weekend. It was magical – delicious food, a beautiful venue, stimulating conversation with interesting, smart people. You know, all the good stuff. A friend texted me on the journey up to Clare, telling me to have a great time, and wondering if I might ‘meet someone’ there. That’s what happens when you’re single, I’ve discovered this year, people are forever speculating where you’ll meet the love of your life – the checkout line at the supermarket, in the airport lounge, at a yoga class. When I walked into the first session of the weekend, I almost laughed when I saw the other participants. They were, as I had suspected, mostly women in their late 40s/early 50s, and a couple of younger women whom I soon found out had come with their mothers. On Sunday afternoon, as I was dragging my suitcase out to the car, I bumped into a group of five men and the sight of them was so unexpected, I almost reared back in shock. “Hey,” one said to me. “Do you know where we check in for the Wim Hof workshop?”
That’s where the men are – deep breathing in a tub of ice. Alert all your single friends.
It’s interesting to me, this division by gender. Forgive me for generalising but whenever I see men practicing self-care, it tends to be tougher, bracing, and coded as masculine as a result. See Wim Hof but also sea swimming and ayahuasca; self-care with a side of pain. I had planned to write an essay about that, about the emotional labour we expect of women in all areas of life, and how mental health is no different. Women will have to be the ones to go to therapy, to do the work, to break old patterns and intergenerational trauma. We will be the ones to heal, and in turn, heal those around us. It’s exhausting and it can feel unfair, but if not us, then who?
But something happened at the retreat that made me change my mind. It made me want to write a different essay, something much more personal.