anxious

When I write about my dark days, my darkness, I don’t do so to elicit sympathy. I don’t write out of self-pity, nor do I write to say how much tougher my life is than anyone else’s. No. I write to shine a light on the truth we all experience at times. In our culture of stiff upper lip-ness, we might forget that the lower lip is wobbling, and it is the larger lip. We might feel that we always have to show our positive attitude towards our negative emotions. We can tell ourselves we ‘should’ not feel this way considering that socking long list of blessings as others keep reminding us. We can beat ourselves up for walking in darkness when all we have to do is to reach out for the light switch. In short, we are terrified of feeling utterly lost inside a life we ‘normally’ control perfectly. Perfection is our enemy and perfection is unattainable for every single one of us. Once we get that little nugget, we free ourselves from its chains and bars. I can put out to the world that I am always ok because I decide to be ok but it is a lie. So, when I write of darkness, I write to connect with anyone else who experiences the clutching fear of failure, the self-doubt and the loneliness of that darkness. The words ‘mental health issues’ make us run for cover. We don’t have them after all. They are for people who have lost the plot, are locked up, are to be pitied and avoided. Well, aren’t they?

No. We all have them. But it is only some of us who have the courage to come out from hiding and to say It Is Ok To Feel This Way. I know it is not easy to see sadness, loneliness and the dark in another’s eyes. We immediately want to proffer upbeat hopeful words, to fix their ‘problem’, when, instead, a soft smile, a virtual hug, a kind silence shared is all anyone needs at a time when their world looks dull and hopeless. For the one in pain and sadness, just to know there is someone who cares and who believes in them, means everything. During these lockdowns and without knowing when our current restrictions will ever end, there are many of us who experience days of feeling lost and hopeless. We can help each other if we are honest about our own pain and and this is why I write honestly, in order to shine that light on our hiding from the truth. There is no shame in feeling down and we don’t need fixing, nor reminding of our long list of blessings. We know them already. We just can’t access them right now and if we speak them out they sound like platitudes at best. However, we have had a million sunshine days so we know they have not abandoned us for ever and we will find our feet again once we relocate our big boots.

This day is bright and welcoming. A complete change from the darkliness of yesterday. I never doubted it even without a map. Although the sky is still goose-grey, the clouds all tapselteerie and pregnant with yet more rain, it doesn’t matter today. Something has shifted, lifted back into light. I don’t have to hold onto it. It is bigger than I, stronger, wiser, less human. Buffeted by the winds of change, rolling with the clouds, flying, falling, failing, worrying, laughing, moving, watching, sliding, running, slipping, arms wide, eyes open, heart full of only love for the turbulence of this precious life, I walk on into the next moment, my blessings fluttering around me like chirruping birds.

I realised, whilst getting myself lost in the streets of Barcelona, that although most of us have two eyes, two ears, one nose and one mouth, no two of us look exactly the same. Similar, yes, almost identical in twins, but never exactly the same. Even the identical twins I know, numbering one brace of birds, are not exactly the same; eyes slightly further apart on one, mouth a bit wider on the other, one quiet and pensive, the other gregarious and full of chat.

People throng through these streets. I stop in a patch of sunshine as they flow by me. They seem to know where they’re going, these hundreds of different faces, just in this one square with 10 narrow cobbled streets running out from it like sunbeams in a child’s painting. Not only am I seeing different nationalities and colours, but within those very numbers there are more differences, and more. Perhaps, I wonder to myself, as I puff for the enth time back into Government Square, they are all thinking it’s Groundhog Day and I am the one keeping it going, popping into view again and again as if I can’t get enough of Government HQ. Although they are a moving mass of human souls, I’m sure I recognise a few of them and they do stare a bit as I grow more and more de-hydrated and anxious. How on earth I manage to keep returning to the same flipping square, when I choose a new street every time is a marvel, even to me, although in my defence, I would like to point out that every single one of them is lined with the same shops. One Desigual, one Barcelona Football Shop, one Flower Shop and one Pharmacy. I might be needing that one if I don’t find my way out of the maze. I also have no money, no idea of the address I’m staying at, nor do I have my mobile phone.

I bet not another soul in this flipping Government Square (oh here it is again!) is as vulnerable on this deceptively calm sunny afternoon. I decide to stop panicking and lean against a wall looking as nonchalant as I can manage. Even though my mouth is dry as sandpaper and my heart about to take off, I manage to calm my breathing, refusing to pay attention to any thoughts of being lost in Spain for months and dying of thirst. Nobody knows where I am, other than somewhere in Barcelona and, as it took us 30 minutes to reach the outskirts yesterday in a speedy motor, it’s a pretty big city. It’s beautiful too, and filled with stunning architecture, churches with bells that toll every quarter and on the hour, quirky alleyways (!), window boxes ablaze with colour, bustling cafes and wine bars. Gaudi is everywhere, or his influence is. The Gran Familia is spectacular from the outside with swoops and swirls of stonework, angels and trumpets, holy words and what looked liked bowls of fruit at the very top. The queue was long and it was raining that day so we didn’t go inside but sat, instead under a cafe umbrella drinking strong black coffee and sharing our opinions on the charge of 25 euros per person to walk through a sacred space, squashed, as you would be, in a seethe of people, and unable to see very much at all.

We are not only different on the outside, but on the inside too. It’s a strange part of our DNA, this difference thingy, because, to be honest, if a little more consideration had gone into our wiring, we might all be great pals, and life would be a doddle. And dreadfully dull, or so I imagine. If we knew just what to do next around each other, we wouldn’t have to ask, research, enquire. We wouldn’t have to dig deep inside ourselves for those folk we find ‘difficult’. We would never need to change. It sounds like Pleasantville to me.

However there are times when I get thoroughly fed up with all this inner changing. It’s all very well writing, and reading, books on the subject of inner betterment, but putting any of it into practice is hard work. Sometimes minute by minute hard work and for years and years. What I have learned is that, if I want to succeed in life I must put everyone else first. I must be compassionate even when I feel like murder – especially then – and I must learn not to talk about myself as often as possible.

I could fold my mental arms and stay exactly as I am, but the damnable thing is that if I put into practice all of the above, learn to breathe more slowly and to count to ten instead of ripping someone’s head off, it is I who feel better about me! I have achieved something, because I have overcome myself. I have found a new way. I don’t welcome change, not in the areas I don’t feel need it, but it is needed for there to be any peace. Biting my tongue is painful, but so much better in the long run. Those unspoken words can leave my mouth in one slow outbreath. Simples.

I was certain I was right in my choice of direction out of the square and yet I was insistently walking the same way over and over, hoping for a different outcome. Once I stopped marching forth with all the conviction of a zealot, my mind set in concrete, and I slowed down, breathed away the panic and allowed in, if not welcomed, the possibility that I might be wrong in my choice of direction, I noticed a wooden walkway between two buildings that had been there all along. It was the one I had walked beneath and admired some hours before. This was my way back home.

I can do the same around a routine, or the way I like something done. It can be a no-big-deal sort of thing and yet it escalates into exactly that when I hold on too tight. After all, I’ve done it this way for years. Why should I change it?

But…. if I let go,(just saying it lowers my shoulders and unclaws my fingers) I allow in the possibility that there might be another way.

Another way back home.