What’s next after mental and physical health?

Double Vision with Charlie Adley

I’m meant to be in England today, but I’m here at home, writing this.  I’m meant to be in my lovely mum’s living room, enjoying the company of the astounding, energetic, astute and lucid 90-year-old who made me.

Instead I’m staring out of my office window, waiting for hours of rain to arrive, and much as I’d love to have been there, given my health at the moment, there’s nowhere I’d rather be than here.

Two days ago I was in great form. The house was hoovered, laundry done, suitcase packed.

This was going to be a tiny trip, just two nights to see family, because back in August I’d cancelled a much longer trip at the last moment.

That was going to be my holiday. Family and friends in London, but I couldn’t do it.

The tiniest sniff of conflict was setting me off. After I’d cried three times in public in six days, I pulled out of the trip.

Back in July this colyoom told of the arrival of a depression. It has been fierce, intense, long-lasting and extremely useful, because the foundations of my life have fundamentally altered.

Being a control freak, I find it hard to let go, yet I desperately needed to grieve. Within a depression I have no defence against my emotions, so I’ve engaged each as they presented themselves, took the hit, took it again, marvelled at how ridiculous life is when this 59-year-old can still feel pure naïve pain, and tried to simply accept the different losses and conflicts that have dominated my life over the last year.

That sounds good, that ‘over the last year’. Hopefully I’m now emerging, and soon will be able to enjoy looking forward, without carrying the past on my back.

To read Charlie’s column in full, please see this week’s Galway City Tribune.

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