"About Me" is a dynamic description.

And why you should wear purple before you are old.

I was doing admin yesterday.

If you know me well then you will know that admin is excrutiating for me.

One of my admin tasks was sorting out the highlights reels of my Instagram.

I reached the “About” highlight and noticed how much I have changed since its original execution.

Here I am now re-writing my “About.”

Before anything else, I am Jess. Who is Jess? That is a question that I have taken many years to really determine. I have become quite good at it and am mostly able to tell what is authentically me, and what isn’t, pretty quickly these days. Doing the things that don’t feel like they fall in the former category almost feel unpalatable to me now.

I am a giver. In many years prior, I gave too much to others, often at my own expense, and often without any reciprocity. Now, I teeter the line of giving as nourishment and from a place of empathy, and then realizing when I over-step my own energetic boundary and need to re-calibrate. It’s an ongoing dance. But I find deep meaning in giving and helping others, and it’s a fundamental part of my person.

I am a deeply feeling, sensitive, emotionally intelligent, attuned human being. It’s taken a long long long time to love sensitive parts of myself. Most days I do. Somedays I don’t. But, I do love how feeling so deeply allows me to experience the world in such a meaningful and heartfelt way. The emotional intelligence comes from the deep way in with I feel combined with the years in therapy I have taken to really understand my emotional world and how to navigate it. I think the attuned-ness is innate. My nervous system has spidey-senses. People have told me that I can pick up a shift in emotion before they are even able to clock it themselves. They combine to form a constellation of rareness that is me. Hi! I’m Jess.

I’m fucking funny and I have a rebellious, cheeky side that I have intentionally had to foster and nurture as a “good girl” in recovery. I actively work on playing and fun. Strange things to have to work at you may say. But I don’t think play comes easily to all of us, and it’s something I’ve had to allow myself to do. Just like rest. We have a tricky relationship. Play, rest and I are often at odds.

I love learning, it’s one of the great joys of my life and to develop an understanding of something makes me hum, both internally and externally (likely externally as a hip-hop song and internally as joy.)

One of the biggest things I hold onto in life is the opportunity for growth. If I know I’m growing, even when it’s as painful as fuck, it’s something I can hold onto as my North Star. I have seen the ways that needing to grow, and leaning into it, even if I hate it in the moment, has lead me to deeper and more meaningful versions of myself, and allowed me to create a life that feels very much my own. Even when it’s ever changing.

I am a very snappy dresser and I love clothes. I was talking to someone recently about how I find a lot of power and expression in my dressing. I read the poem; “When I Am Old, I Shall Wear Purple” again a while ago and I have taken it quite literally. Though the essence of it hits home each time, too. I’ve popped it below in case you are curious.

I love tattoos and am currently working on the sleeve on my arm.

I’m irrationally scared of moths.

Very few things can keep me out of the ocean. Except sharks. Yes, actually sharks can definitely keep me out of the ocean.

What else am I?

I’m a mother to a magical little girl called Kit. Being her mother has been the biggest lesson on growth I’ve experienced in life so far. It’s also been the biggest act of learning to love the parts of myself that I previously found hard to be tender to. Someone stopped me when I was with her last week and told me that she had never seen a mother and daughter look so similar. She looks exactly like me. How strange, to have the small version of myself in the world to love. What an absolute gift, to have the small version of myself in the world to love.

I’m a single mother. I am still wrapping my head around that one. Possibly more commentary on this at a later point. (Maybe a time to subscribe to my newsletter in order to follow along when I eventually feel like I can articulate this.)

I am a Specialist Psychiatrist. That sounds pretty fancy. I suppose it is to some extent. I worked really hard to get it and it took a really long time. I often say that I know I am one of the lucky ones who really does love my job. My nature to help led me to Medicine. My own mental health journey led me to specializing in mental health. My experience as a woman took me into practicing, primarily, in the Women’s Mental Health space. I walk with women in such pivotal life moments; fertility, pregnancy, the transition into motherhood; and I validate their experience where the world has told them there is no validity to what they go through, in Menstruation, Pre-Menstrual Dysphoric Disorder, Chronic Pain, Neurodiversity, and what is actually feels like to be a women daily.

I am a good friend and as my life has gotten longer I have realised how my greatest love affairs have been within my friendships. Platonic love is one of my core foundations.

I am a writer. I’m going to lean into that descriptive word more. I have always found solace in words, devouring books and stories for as long as I can recall. Reading stories that reflect my own and telling stories that make people feel less alone are the two parts I love the most. We have community through storytelling. And shame dies when stories are told in safe places. I have dissolved my own shame through the stories of another and I only hope to dissolve the shame of others with my own.

So, at Forty-One, this is Jess. I quite like her. Knowing life as I do, I’ll likely need to update this again in a few years. I’m intrigued at what will change and what parts will remain the same. I hope you remain intrigued in your own “About”, too. It’s a beautifully dynamic thing, just like you are. And in the storytelling of it, yours and my own, may there always be hope.

“Warning” by Jenny Joseph

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practise a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.