1 day till op

(intense post incoming)

going into surgery at 10am tomorrow. buzzing. im having a tendon transfer for drop foot incase anyone wants to know the specifics. if it works, it will straighten my right foot so it doesn’t drop anymore which will have a massive positive effect on the rest of my body. 70% more overall mobility! i cant believe this is actually happening, im trying not to get my hopes up, im really trying. its difficult though. i’ve been chatting to my flute teacher about dance ‘once i’m recovered i want to dance with the flute’ i can hear myself getting giddy and it scares me. i have to be careful. ive been thinking things like ‘i wonder if ill be able to wear cute shoes again’ i can only wear sturdy trainers usually cos my feet need the support. i hate trainers now, every single day i hate putting them on with my foot supports, not cool trainers either but sturdy and boring ones that ruin whatever outfit i’m wearing. the foot supports cut off near the middle of my calf so i never show my legs, i hate how they look with the foot supports i feel like it makes my legs look stumpy. and the loss of movement has made my calves skinnier which i hate, and they squeeze my feet too, they are like binders.

so..you could say im almost bursting to be having this surgery. bursting.

if it works ill probably still wear a foot support on my left foot as i have drop foot on both feet just my right is alot worse, but ill wear it looser, less binding, i can also train the left foot to strengthen unlike the right, and sometimes i wont need to atall. it’ll be life changing.

fully aware this isn’t the worst problem to have either, i’m also extremely fortunate and privileged in many ways, i hope you know that i know that, but fuck me, a spinal injury is a real bastard, and i do get very down sometimes. but what i’ve realised as ive gotten older is that injury is actually very common, disability is very common. most humans have something, physical or mental or both, no one is walking around unscathed. were not A.I robots, we are human beings with scars, and heartbreak and stretch marks…once i actually realised that,fully, once it sunk in, i felt myself opening up again and becoming gentler. i spent many years in my twenties just so fucking angry.

i valued my appearance very highly, i didn’t feel intelligent or important in any way growing up but sometimes people called me pretty and i liked that. who doesnt? and when i felt like i lost that, lost my ‘hotness’ my body to me just wasn’t as nice anymore and i had all these weird injuries now…i just had an absolute identity crisis. i felt useless. i felt like my music career was ruined because i wasn’t me anymore, i was just some lump, some shadow of my former self. its all grief. beautiful grief that forced me to grow. I touched on it in my song My Body She Is Alive from my second album.

for the first couple years after the accident id have recurring dreams that i was running through a forest, fast and free with my lungs full of air and id wake up crying, cos when i woke up id be hit again with the realisation that id never run again. run for pleasure, run to get out of danger, run just to run. everything was slower now, so much trepidation, it was like someone just sweeping away your youth with the click of a finger, i was so angry. so much was taken so quickly and then i had to try and hold my head up and promote an album with a smile on my face. there was alot of shit going on whilst i was making that album too that didn’t help with my rage. its taken me a really long time to feel like this again, just to be able to talk about it atall is massive for me.

im oversharing now. its really hard to talk about something like this with neat little concise phrases. its just heavy, awkward, confusing, exhausting, amusing, touching. i do firmly believe this accident has made me funnier in a really dark twisted way.

and i am eternally grateful for that!

i dont know how to bookend this, i feel like im writing crime and punishment in this costa, its just a tendon transfer and i hope it works.

but this is a beautiful time, i can almost feel the page turning, the new chapter of my life. the pink cottage chapter, with the studio in my house, the surgery, the new music..

speaking of-

the other reason im buzzing is because ive been given an official release date for my new single!

so its happening, new music is coming! and as i said i have support, a fantastic music distribution company called Rebublic Of Music is putting out my single via my own record label….i could cry.

my record label is called….

RenetteRecords

!!!!

I chose RR because i have a few supporters who have been to a lot of my gigs over the years and i love them, i love to see their familiar faces in the audience and i dubbed them ‘the renettes’ ages ago, if your reading this maybe your a renette yourself and you dont even know it. if you like my music then you are!

its hard for me to commit to this substack without being myself, and myself is intense, i don’t really do informal and laid back, im terrible at small talk and i have anxiety. this is me being me so please dont think im having a mental breakdown or anything, if you dont hear from me atall and i just go rogue thats when im usually going through it. me chatting like this is only happening because im feeling strong and happier.

i just imagined a cricket sat at the bar dressed like a victorian gentlemen saying ‘i couldn’t give a fuck either way’

ha

eugh, feels abit me me me this now. it is my substack though? after this period ill break it up abit more with videos and music etc.. am i apologising again for being intense? yeahhh

anyway, lots of love

ren xxxx