HELLO TO YOU
A wise person, compared to me, said that if people are going to want to read this book then you need to do an introduction so that anyone new to you and your world will quickly know whether they want to read on; a way of checking if the blurb on the back cover lives up to its promise.
This is a musing, a meandering through real life. It is not about drama, although there is drama. It is not about devastation, although there is devastation. This is a book about living, about understanding, about learning, about growing, about love and also grief, about summers walking the dog by the sea and winters when we are too tired to think. It is about answering the alarm when the world is so surreal and dark that school and work seem like an absurdity and because it is me, it is about the world of mental illness and compulsory treatment and trying to live a normal life when everyone says there is no such thing as normal.
It is almost not a book; I have learnt very late in life that there is something wrong with the compartments in which I place my identity; there is my mental illness, my compulsory treatment, my new family, my work, the family I grew up with and still love very much, there is death, love, sex, there is boredom and a drive to succeed and change the world even though I no longer know how to change the world or why. There is a cliché associated with each one and a stereotype which I have taken to heart. My book is divided into its different subjects like a calendar or an essay. You can read all about my feelings for Wendy, you can find out about life with grief and work in lockdown, mental illness and mental health, my dad and Wendy’s dad and finally, all the bits we all carry on doing whatever the dramas are that are going on around us. I don’t know any other way of placing these parts of my life together because, although they are all part of me they are separate, maybe as I
meander through, the sections will meld together, different bits speak to each other.
The book is not all sad. In fact there are some funny bits. It is about my dad, and Wendy’s dad’s illness and their deaths but also it is about family. It does not try to make you think in a certain way about living or dying, family or work and how we approach it. I tell my tale as it happened to me and those I love.
We will all die, and most of us will fall in love and feel the joy and fear of new relationships. Most of us will wake up after that first wonderful rush of love and find the world different. Many of us nowadays find ourselves in relationships where the children in the family are not our children and have to learn how to navigate that rich, complex and terrifying world.
*
Why do I feel I have the right to write about such things? I am not sure I do. However, I know that, all appearances to the contrary, in the real world, where I am known for my silence, that I have a lot to say and it is as simple as that: I want to tell you bits of this story.
I think I may bring something special because what we all go through when we die or witness loved ones die or when we fall in love, is special. What you go through; what your friends go through; that is special too. I love to hear of people’s different worlds, whether that is in books, on film, in the pub or on a walk and I hope you will like and be interested in the glimpses I give you into my world.
I bring a very, very, niche perspective of the anxieties that occur when someone who has a mental illness tries to develop and sustain a life-long, loving relationship. But maybe there are connections to others who are also taking that step into the bonds of family and love. I may give an even more niche perspective to those people who stand on the edge of tragedy and who desperately want to help those they
love, but doubt they have the skills to do so; maybe here there are some tips for people like me who are trying to help the people they love with something so difficult.
You can read about the years before I moved down to Argyll, in START, my memoir about my years of breakdowns, the harshness of my marriage and the beauty of falling in love with Wendy. This new book is a continuation of those years, it tells tales of some of the things that have happened since START.
If any of this appeals to you, do read on. I will be glad of your company.