Remembering 2020 – part 1

This post focuses on January and February 2020

What will I remember 2020 for? I was asked this by a wise colleague, back in late November. Here, now, on 24th January 2021, I can ask myself the same question. I can pose it in the broadest context, or in the narrowest context, or any level of context in between broad and narrow.

And, the answer? Without pause or hesitation, I answered that I’ll remember 2020 for the good things. So many good things, in a unique year. One where I have discovered more joy than perhaps I had ever considered possible. Where I have equally known severe anxiety and associated depression, as never before. One where my story telling began to come of age, through written more than spoken word. One where this written word has become a central part of me, a defining part for the rest of my days, and perhaps for all of my days. One where, above all else, the love I share with Beautiful T emerges as the rock of life, of all life, eternal.

The year started, as the previous one had finished, with me in a high state of anguish and despair. This is not the good stuff which I remember, and I share this as the background to my story. It was into February before my severe anxiety and associated depression were diagnosed. I had spent a long time in falling apart, and I had descended rapidly in the preceding few months. This culminated with me on holiday with family over Christmas ’20 and New Year, wanting and needing to hide away, to withdraw and retreat, from everyone and everything. Emerging cautiously only after I had enough of my retreat. Surrounded by sunshine, beach, space, family, well intended concerns. I could not find the capacity within me to be my usual fun and laughing self. My gentle humour and easy manner were missing, completely overwhelmed and submerged, buried deep beneath the dark shadows of of my mental ill health.

I sat in corners. I sought out the solitary seats and benches and chairs in the beach house. I did not want to be involved, and did not want to cater for or look after anyone, beyond morning coffee for myself and Beautiful T. Yes, even in this deep dark brooding shade, morning coffee rituals remained a fixture, underscoring the magic of shared rituals. I remember this as one of the good things. It always has been special, is special, and is always special – now and in all time to be.

Finding sleep was never easy, especially for anything approaching a full night. Usually, tiredness from sun and exercise and food and drink, and from the exertions and sheer effort of being, were enough to see me away to sleep. Waking during the night, whether for a bathroom trip or simply waking, often precipitated a few hours of anguish and wrestling. My mantra, which I picked up in the final Yoga class of 2019, was “I am calm. I smile” to in breath and out breath. This mantra enabled me to remain relatively still, and focused on something than racing emotions and thoughts. Most nights, I could eventually find sleep for enough hours to emerge eventually the following day with some shadows of restfulness under my skin.

This was difficult for everyone around me, as I appeared irritable and sad and unpredictable and rude and difficult. I simply tried to protect myself, with the very limited tools which I had at my disposal then. I knew that I was in deep trouble, and I was aware of some causes. Little else was visible to me at that stage, or so it seemed. Functioning was a challenge, every day.

Our holiday progressed, my family joined that of Beautiful T in South Africa for a week. Some input from by wise younger brother, Special K, was hugely beneficial for me. Maybe also for others, as I do not know, and did not ask, about what other conversations went on without me. I do hope they did happen, and were useful.

Many magical days, for others perhaps more than me, emerged from that holiday. As days went past, I worked on being less a source of disruption, more a source of quietness, keeping within the boundaries of safety which I could vaguely discern. Exercise, fresh air, joining in when I could, retreating when I could not. Undoubtedly, in hindsight, I drew some immense assurance from that holiday, the beginnings of progress rather than the end of falling apart. The continuity of a beautiful life, simply obscured for a time, too long, by shade and darkness, by clouds which can blow away.

Coming back home in mid January, it was not long before I realised that functioning at work was an impossibility, given that I continued to struggle with functioning as a human being – as a man, as a husband, a brother, a father, a friend, a lover, a confidant. I stepped back from work on 24th January 2020, one year ago, for what was to be a ten week period initially. I stepped into space.

Slowly, steadily, in the space and peace and small world which I was able to create, I began to make some sense of my journey. Exhaustion, from years of running myself to a standstill, just like in a marathon, and getting up to do it all again, every day. Exhaustion, from putting the things which were most important in the wrong place. Me, my love, my Beautiful T – in the wrong place. Subservient to a work ethic and a passionate belief that my work mattered, that my capacity to effect change and make a difference mattered. I had trusted, I had believed, I was innocent and I was naive. For too long. I was paying the price for this, for the lack of caring enough about myself and all that I hold most precious, for taking these for granted and vesting too much of me in ephemera, and in others not worthy of such vesting.

Yet, I was wise enough to see I needed to stop. I did not know exactly what I needed to stop. Stepping back was essential, though, from a workplace which had become a harmful place for me. From a whirling set of activities and doing and compensating and self- validation and frantic searching. This seeing that I needed to stop, and wanted to stop, they were so powerful a start, prompt, for an awakening, they were so desperately needed and so wonderfully beneficial. The first of many good things. That stopping, that wanting to stop.

I had organised our trip to Paris, to include Valentine’s Day, and booked it months previously. The pretext was to visit the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at the Louvre, celebrating the 500th anniversary of his death. Exhibition tickets booked, morning of 13th February 2020. Eurostar train tickets booked and paid, out on 12th february and back on 15th. Simply accommodation to sort out. I still do not know why we had left the accommodation booking until a few weeks before the trip, but we had. Beautiful T was immensely busy, struggling for time and space to make the trip. We decided that I should continue with the trip. Beautiful T knew that i wanted to go, and that the trip offered a great deal of benefit for me. I knew this with less certainty. initially. I booked some central and inexpensive accommodation in Le Marais, so that I was as central as possible – within 1k of the Louvre – and then I began my research in earnest.

I began to walk around Stamford as if I were in Paris, letting my imagination take me to the local equivalent of the Left Bank, and Shakespeare & Co. From Gare du Nord to La Madeline, Le Pain Quotidien in St German de Pres, Rue du Bac, Ile de la Cite, Pont des Arts. The magic of another good thing, unexpected. Mixing my knowledge of Paris from previous trips – one with Beautiful T, my first trip there and an eternal magic. Two trips to run the Paris Marathon sit in my personal pantheon. A few trips for work added some further insights and instincts about things to research, places to go.

I remember my excitement, palpable despite my – at times – seemingly debilitating anxiety. Left or right, stand up or sit down, choose this or that, blue or green hat, wash or dry, eat or drink – every choice and potential choice was loaded with complexity and indecision, anxiety-fuelled.

Yet, I already has some good things under my belt in the preceding weeks, and more to follow, soon.

I was set for Paris.