if waterslides are this much fun why did i wait so long to try one

If water-slides are this much fun why did i wait so long to try one???????????????????

This question is the basic question I need to ask myself when I start to slip away into the dark place again.  I have put my duty, moreover my perceived duty, before my enjoyment of life for so long.  I forgot what fun was, well good clean fun anyway.  Sex and drugs, and sausage rolls well perhaps they are fun but they can be emotionally damaging if used in the wrong way. 

Yesterday i went down a water-slide for the first time.  I learned many lessons.

1)  I admitted I had not experience of how to do something and did not know how to do it i.e. go down a waterslide- overcoming the belief that I must have all the answers.

2)  Ask for help or clarification if you need to :such as could I get stuck- Here the lesson is to admit my fears, I am a size 16 I think that I am quite fat and this stops me doing things for fear that people will laugh at me, I did genuinely think I might get stuck, I know many people would think that was really silly but now I know that would be impossible.  By asking you are inviting others to help, and the nice helpful life guard explained to me on my second go just how much more fun it could be if I went really fast and showed me how to hold my body to do that. wow fantastic.

3) Let go of fear: I started to panic a little when I gathered extreme speed, yes I did follow the instructions on how to go really really fast and I managed to zoom down - but having learned to let go I let go of my fear and enjoyed the ride.

4) The best lesson of all was you are never too old to have fun- the sight of an overweight middle aged woman screaming her head off with pleasure in public half naked is an image of myself I had not considered never mind been comfortable with.  Its important to consider:  Do I want to have fun or conform to an image I imagine other people expect of me. Maybe I can learn to project better expectations onto others and maybe they might just want me to live up to those new images: of slightly overweight odd woman likely to so something fun.  That is a better image to me rather than serious career woman with no sense of humour. 

5) We all can choose to change when we are ready to do so.  I spent an hour under the water jets massaging every single knot of tension out of every single bit of my body.  So when my daughter asked me to go down the water slide, normally I would refuse as I would be afraid of pulling something or putting my back out, I could find no reason to refuse as my body was so relaxed and felt so good. I was ready to go down the slide and have fun. 

So give up your oul limiting images of yourself and have some good clean old fashioned fun. 

Happy St Patrick's Day