An ode to a person that kept my feet on the ground and a thing that keeps them off

Below is a letter that I recently wrote to my therapist, who I nervously stopped seeing a few months ago. Reading it back made me realise the efficacy of that therapy and the hugely positive impact that it had on my life.

The View from Above

I walk a fair amount. I walk to work and I walk back. I walk after work and my breaks from work are largely based around walking in beautiful places. A great deal of my time is spent thinking ahead to walks and looking back on them. Sometimes I walk "off-piste". I have clocked a fair few miles on wonderful trails, I've tramped through the woods and snagged my trousers and skin on brambles and branches. Yet, it presents an odd topography.

Throwing Stones at Gandalf

As part of my attempt to try and get a better grasp of my own instinct I have discovered that throwing stones at stuff might help greatly. It has also apparently made me better at basketball (which I don't really play) and might even be making me feel better generally. Playing never grows old.

It does not feel right for a reason

To save you the effort of my convoluted approach, you can probably get the idea by reading this or watching these videos:

Focus pocus

On Friday I head to the hills for Ollie's birthday. We are headed back to Snowdonia. This time it will be cold. I find myself preparing every day in some way. I enjoy prepartion. I find comfort in the focus it gives me and I find myself a far cry from those endless, aimless days horizontal and lost. Focus and preparation are perhaps some of the most practical tools in anyone's life, whether depressive or not. And what better thing to focus your mind than a change in season or the celebration of a great friend's continued existence. And in this fine case, both.

It is so easy to lose focus. There is so much distraction and so many things to draw your attention elsewhere, towards some exciting new thing that really will be of little actual worth. This I have found particularly disgusting and disturbingly emblematic...

Mountains of Fear

I completely forget that my legs are tired and that there is a 7lb pack on my back. I forget that I like to eat cheese, even though I am trying to stop eating it for my heart. I forget about the changes I am trying to make in my life and I forget that I have a job. Everything now is focused on my imminent death and there comes that terrible movement of the solid. It is not an earthquake, but my fear.

Snowflakes and mental health

I have recently been on assignment in a terrible place. I had been there casually for many years, oftentimes without knowing so. Over the past five of my six-and-twenty years it became more apparent that I needed to visit with some purpose. And now I feel obliged to report some of my dispatches.