It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it…

I could never have seen myself writing this piece that I am now about to embark upon. I thought I had it all covered. I thought I knew where my life would bring me. I thought I knew how I would end my days. I always knew we were different from each other. I always knew we had different thoughts, interests, views on life. I always thought that’s what made us good for each other. The yin to each other’s yang. I thought that’s what would always keep us together, what made us an impenetrable fortress, a force to be reckoned with. When I was too far off the mark he pulled me back, and I thought I was his rock, someone who would always be there for him, no matter what he did. I would always give out but love him enough to want to see him through things.

You know I never saw it coming. I never saw his deep deep discontent. I was oblivious. Lost in my own world for the last three years. Fighting my own demons. Trying to work out who I was when I lost my job, trying to find some semblance of myself somewhere deep in my archives. The chronic pain took away my laughter. I stopped going out that much. I hated using the walking stick. I began to hate everything I once cared about in my own being. I don’t know if I became self-obsessed or if it was just that I lost myself in the abyss. It’s a question I have asked myself so often lately and yet I can find no answer.

The balance between loving one’s children and hating oneself is how I feel it must be like to walk a tightrope between two multi-storey buildings. If you look down you are lost forever, so you must keep your eyes on the things that are most precious in your life. I don’t want to look down but sometimes I feel my eyes being drawn to that place, a place where there is no return.  The guilt I then feel over whelms me and makes me feel worse. Now I am trying to fight, to find that spark that I know I once had. That spark that will make my children proud of me again. That spark that will make me shine just even a fraction of the sparkle I once had.

I am not writing this piece tonight for people’s pity or indeed to capture their feelings of love. I know I am loved, there are many who have shown unbelievable love to me over the last few years and especially the last few weeks. I will never repay that love, I can only hope that in the past I displayed some elements of that kindness and that on some level I payed it forward.  I post this as I have posted other pieces as I hope in some small way to say thanks or to be of comfort to someone who while not in the same place gets some relief from knowing they are not alone. No one is ever alone when it comes to mental health. There is always someone who just needs to know they are not the only one. We brush it under the carpet so much in this country and we offer so little real help. It’s time to talk about it more and to ensure that more is done to help us all. 

Always happy for people to leave comments, good, bad or indifferent, helps me to become a better writer.