Trans men are real men too

In my job as a nurse helping homeless people I have knowingly met many transpeople (I am not a particularly sociable person and so I meet very few new people outside of work). Some of them I have met because of the psychiatric profession pathologising their transgenderism under the banner of mental health (hopefully this will disappear soon) but others I have met through usual day to day interaction (poverty is a great leveller and doesn't discriminate for or against transpeople, cisgender people or others). My reasons for working as a nurse with particularly vulnerable people could appear truly cheesy and cringe-worthy but the reality is that I hate unfairness, I hate bullies and I am fully aware of the power of autonomy. We flower when we are in charge of our own destiny and I want to help people regain some of that control when it is lost without intention.
Some ignorance about trans issues is conscious prejudice because there is only cursory research, and hence evidence, about why some people are transgender so some people make up reasons to fit their own narrative (I'm very aware that explaining transgenderism via scientific research is an ugly concept for some and that the focus should be on solidarity rather than scientific explanations but I am writing this from my view of knowledge and my view of interest).
There has been very recent research in Belgium to suggest (strongly) that the brains of transpeople identify on a physical, neurological level with the brains of the gender they identify with. There has also been research for many years proving the changeability of the the physical make-up and processes of the brain throughout our life (neuroplasticity) which may also contribute to being transgender and to gender fluidity. Cognitive neuroscience is really in its infancy and will be a massively exciting field to work in over the next few decades. Also, our genetic make-up and the interaction of the environment with our genes (epigenetics) has proven the extraordinary complexity of the human condition and the million shades of colour we exhibit and inhibit. I passionately watched the Human Genome project, an extraordinary scientific endeavour mapping the human genetic code, progress through the 1990s at a cost of a billion dollars. As of today some companies are offering the same genetic mapping for individuals for $999 and it takes one day- the field of genetic science is amazing as we discover the increasing complexity of our genetic code and the lack of demarcation between nature and nurture, such is their close relationship. Clearly the old fashioned idea that our gender is defined by our genitals or by XX or XY chromosomes is over-simplistic nonsense, as has been proven for years.
But that's just the scientific evidence.
Self identifying as transgender and then sharing that knowledge is really hard. It can be terrifying. There are serious and real risks of rejection from all corners of your life and risks of serious violence. Real violence. It is no surprise to me that around half of the people who identify as trans have considered taking their own life. Half. The fault for this terrible pressure and lack of acceptance comes direct from ones' environment, from the society and media that mock and confute and use fear of "the other" to gain capital, from the wilful ignorance of friends, neighbours, people on Twitter who refuse to weigh and consider and refuse to take even a cursory glance at the subjective experience.
I think times are changing. The non-binary nature of gender is beyond serious debate. That people identify as trans, and through their subjective experience as male or female or neither, is non-negotiable and the rest of the world is playing catch up. My anecdotal experience is that, to be open with others about being transgender, one has to have gone through such a phenomenal amount of introspection and that one has to be so completely assured about it, if you say you're a man, you're a man. Of course anyone can say it but that's not what transgender means- it means you feel a different gender to the one assigned to you at birth. It isn't what you say, it's who you are.
So what to do? The main advice I give, as a mental health professional, is usually clinical advice because I often meet people who identify as trans due to the problems they experience. And those problems are usually the fault of other people around them so my support is usually about exploration of the self, information about formal LGBTQI+ services, related mental health issues (depression, anxiety, ideas of self-harm, etc) and providing a listening ear and a safe place to be as honest as they
feel comfortable. And I would encourage them to tell anybody they they feel safe to do so which may not necessarily be a close relative or friend but simply someone they feel comfortable enough ("would you feel/be safe telling them?") to confide in.
None of this should be an issue, of course, because the dangers and stressors lie with non-trans people. The more this issue is discussed, the less we pathologise it, the more we can all be comfortable around that which we do not know. Knowledge is power.
Much of the transphobia I have seen online, and which has been told to me by other people, has been about trans women not being perceived as "real" women or trans men not being perceived as "real" men to which my immediate thought is: What is a real women or a real man? It certainly isn't a chromosomal thing or a genital thing or the words you choose. An idea currently in trend is that trans women don't have a "lived" experience as women and won't have directly experienced the same sexism, misogyny, differences and other insights into female gender identity. This is such a patronising idea to me because if you identify as female you will feel the same, or very similar, internalised patriarchal pressures that many women experience. And it makes no sense to me identifying your gender based on ideas of violence, disadvantage and negativity. Is a trans man only a "real" man if they competitively earn more than their peers or like football or get into fights in a pub? I like very few typically male things I guess I am not a "real" man either.
If something is beyond your control then your worry will change nothing. If something is in your control, choose wisely. It would be blatant idiocy for me to be angry at someone because they are Kurdish or ginger or tall or a heterosexual, the same model of idiocy expressed by transphobes. If you can help your choices, being a Tory say or disliking cheese, then your shortfalls are up for contrarian discussion.
There is a spectrum here. Not all women have experiences that some women consider necessary if they want to call themselves women. Not all men have experiences that some men consider necessary if they want to call themselves men. Some experiences, and the resultant personality that is affected, are male, some are female and many people experience both types. In combining within us those lived experiences with the plasticity of our neural development and the complexity of genes and epigenetics and a hundred other factors beyond my brain power to understand, the idea that gender is binary is surely a dead idea.
There is a beautifully analogue fluidity to gender in humans. To even suggest the idea of "trans"-anything suggests there is clearly male and female and you identify as "not one but the other" as opposed to identifying as "my gender which is simply, naturally, messily, uniquely me". Our primary hope is to accept differences as natural and normal- as we do if you are a Kurd or ginger or tall or heterosexual- and just be fucking nice to each other. There is no zero sum gain here- you don't lose out if your transgendered (perceived) enemy gains some acceptance, you gain too, as we all do. People who identify as trans can be arseholes just as frequently as other people, and they can be racist and Tories and cheese-haters too. Judge people on their choices.
And if they vote Tory dismiss them from your lives forever, they only brought it on themselves.

An Old Poem

Foundations

When houses are new,

with inspiring, influential solidity,

with smoky signs of life soaring to heights

and lights, the life-signs of the restless.

New houses are square, they're just there,

like single boulders. Built on shared

times, mortared with blunt-edged anecdotes,

fresh colours, clean windows, new glue.

When houses are old,

and fulfilling their use, cracks start to show.

Its walls wane and wander,

groaning under the weight of age and change.

The gaps trace like deconstructing plot-lines,

through predictable brick-line breaks,

like old arguments with new jagged edges,

down to the foundations, without fuss, like foundations.

And there, nestling on the bedrock, is our base

of unshifting seismic certainty,

of unchanging geological you-ness,

of all you are, without fuss, like rock.

Underground, unseen, understood,

unfounded, the earth swallows us.

Better by far we are founded

than rocked by a bitter wind,

or dislodged by a weed,

growing in our shadow.

Toxic Masculinity

I often think about masculinity being toxic and about who it affects. I have read recently about hegemonic masculinity as being a more accurate phrase to use because it encompasses the element of toxicity and also explains its origins in age-old patriarchy and its aggressive dominance. How can masculinity become toxic? Because it is rooted in centuries of oppression and force leading to disparities that are accepted as being "normal". If these disparities can be reflected upon and considered in detail, the reasons and histories, then maybe men can do something about this problem- about women receiving less pay for the same work, about women doing more unpaid and insecure work, about women not having universal suffrage, about educational inequality for girls, about glass ceilings, about sexual violence against women, and so on and on. If men can do something about this then men should do something about this.  How can men do something about this? Men can use the position they are in because of those centuries of patriarchy to somehow lift others up. If men have the advantage of predetermined patriarchy then when others' disadvantages are recognised men should use their power and influence usefully. Surely the reason to have power (and money and status) is to give it away.

Hegemonic masculinity is toxic for everyone. For women, of course, because of old, deep, invasive patriarchy that suffuses almost everything and which contributes to a type of misogyny that sometimes feels hard-wired into the human psyche. It is toxic for men too because it utterly distorts their relationships with women and so they learn less, bond less and grow less. Also, because of the advantages that men have (particularly straight white men) such as in power disparity, lack of fear of women and living in world whose default setting is for their benefit means that men are likely to suffer too- poor rates of health in older men are notable, risk-taking behaviour is greater, lower levels of support for emotional and mental health, greater loneliness, etc.
Hegemony masculinity is about dominance. It is toxic precisely because the otherness that it assumes in its power hierarchy gives rise, by definition, to misogyny. It is no surprise that such prejudice often encourages homophobic and transphobic hatred and, in turn, racism too. I often assume that toxic masculinity particularly affects straight white men because it reinforces the heteronormative, binary view of those most deperate for, and who have, power.  Of course this is not to say that hegemonic patriarchy is not intersectional- anecdotally there appears differences  in the privileges and powers of men in different ethnic groups, queer (LGBTQI+) men, those who are poor and so on (I would be curious to look at research related to intersectional power balances and abuses).
Hegemonic masculinity is about unattainable ideals. If aggressive masculinity encourages a black and white approach to partnership, to friendship, to who men are and to who they are supposed be (basically, James Bond) it is unsurprising that many men feel a strong pull towards a comic-book adaptation of manliness. It is partly my own prejudice that looks warily at men who have obviously spent a lot of time in a gym making their muscles bigger or men in suits driving cars that are unnecessarily large. I imagine they are sad they are not allowed to legally carry an umbrella with a poisoned dart on the end.
Hegemonic masculinity limits expression. As men's continual and subconscious reliance on the patriarchy for their success continues, their introspection is reduced and their belief in binary norms are reinforced. They are not encouraged to consider shades of grey, the ambiguous aspects of human life, and spend little time weighing, considering, examining. The result is a dearth of personal exploration and, instead, the expressed wilful ignorance of 99% of the human experience.
Hegemonic masculinity dimishes life-chances. I am a mental health support worker helping homeless people with varied needs (health issues, addiction issues, etc) and I meet many young men who have rarely had a positive role-model in their life. They often feel trapped in their poverty and unequipped to deal with positive change and engagement with helpers. It is very difficult to escape the restrictions of toxic masculinity if it has spent your life teaching you to be invulnerable and emotionless (or at least that to show vulnerability and emotion is a sign of weakness and is to your disadvantage). There are many restrictions in my job, some "peace walls" are higher than others here in Belfast, but there is an underlying and persistent influencer that restricts men, and by association all of us, again and again. This influencer facilitates drug abuse, it empowers poverty, it perpetuates trans-generational trauma from The Troubles, it encourages distance between young men and young women and also between young men and old men- the influence of toxic masculinity.

Men need to learn a lot. In standing by when women are belittled, abused and coerced, men, like me, are complicit in their abuse. Us moderates who look away (in fear of abuse or embarrassment maybe) are participants although we like to ignore this fact. With our passivity we are co-facilitating patriarchy, encouraging it. When men, like me, do nothing we ossify patriarchy, and we ossify ourselves. We petrify women and we petrify progress. I am lucky in that I was brought up in a matriarchal house with a sister, no brothers, I always had close friends that are women and most of my colleagues and managers have been women. I consider myself relatively empathic and sensitive to the needs of people unlike me, an advocate and, if needs be, a protector. But I have been reflecting on past comments and behaviours, from when I was a teenager up until today, without an entirely clear and unembarrassed mind. I have said things, and done fewer I think, that have made women uncomfortable and want to not be in my company, at least temporarily. There have been times I won't ever know that women were scared walking the same street as me, uncomfortable to speak up in front of me, didn't want to catch my eye. But for now I hope I can be as introspective and learned as possible to say that I see you, I see myself  and I am trying to be aware. I will be as aware as I possibly can as to how I might be perceived and I will try to use the weight and privelege I have as a white, cis-gender, heteronormative man born into power. I will try to identify subjective and objective otherness and I will listen more.

I have a son to raise, a father to relate to, male friends to love and many men who are homeless to assist. But irrespective of these men in my life I am in contact with hundreds of other humans- men, women, people of both genders and none- and I could do better to recognise all the extraordinary shades of all the glorious colours on the spectrum of human experience. Differences, together.

Grief reminds us why we love

It will be Ruby's 17th birthday next week. I think about her every day. These days I forget that I have thought about her after the thought. It used to be that, when I thought about Ruby, strong emotions would overwhelm me and I knew for hours after that she had been in my mind. I felt the aftershocks, ripples. Then after some more months and years thoughts of Ruby would instead leave a tracer like a radioactive isotope, a half-life of a few hours then eventually just an hour then, at last, minutes. Now, five and a half years after she died, I forget I have had thoughts about her after the thought occurred.
And that's what mostly happens now- the thoughts occur. Thoughts of Ruby used to crash into my consciousness, chaotically destroying any mental work I had managed but now they just occur. I am, these days, gently reminded of her or maybe I will let myself think of her at times I am less vulnerable (after exercise, say, or when I am having one of those little phases of joy here and there) or maybe an old friend will remind me of that time Ruby found a joke funny and we smile together without pathos.
It is a fortunately rare occurrence that violently strong thoughts of grief punch me in the guts and leave me breathless and it always happens from a spontaneously triggering experience. One morning recently Claire told me she dreamt about Ruby (neither of us ever dream about Ruby) and that she dreamt she was stroking her face. Immediately I was struck with rising anxiety, nausea and a physical pain in my chest- I have an immensely clear memory of the feel of Ruby's hair on my face and Claire's dream caused a type of flashback that felt as real as real hair brushing my face. It felt like Ruby was suddenly there with us and I was resting my cheek on her head and I knew, I absolutely knew with the certainty of my own skin on my own bones, that her hair was touching my face. And then I had to suddenly also know that she had died and I had to suddenly know I was without her. The rest of my day was blurry and  actionless and I floated around powered by poignancy. I was suffused with otherness until medication helped me sleep that night. My powerlessness lasted one full day and then I jogged, I cooked, I loved, I read and I did all those things I know help and then normality, of a type, returned.
The world of the bereaved is suffused with otherness- living life a few inches to the left, needing to squint to focus, the requirement to tilt my torso and adjust my head ever so slightly to get the view others receive unfailingly.  Colours are never quite right, they need more light or maybe they are washed out. Circles are oval, edges too sharp. Tactility is squishy or painfully hard.
Bereaved people are acutely aware of their perceived exertion as comparable with others' objective view of their work. And like an athlete in training for a marathon astutely analysing their own body's work rate, the bereaved person knows their exertion level and its relation to reality.
Sometimes my thoughts love the sound of their own voice, circulating round and round, not letting me in, the conscious me who wants to rationalise and interact. They can be obsessively self-centred and exclusionary. At other times it is hard to break out from their tyranny, the  sporadic carapace of grief, I can be imprisoned. But everything passes.

By their very nature anxiety and depression are rational, as is grief. But grief is so much more. It is anxiety and it is depression- normal reactions to unusual circumstances- but it is also post-trauma learning, it is untreatable because it is a sign of wellness not illness, it is an endeavour from which we can learn the importance of things. Grief explains to us the ephemerality we are chained to and maybe provides a reason and eventual escape- it is a reminder of how deep we loved someone.
This is the bittersweet nature of grief- we are sad because we were happy. We are broken-hearted because we loved. A key navigation skill along the road of grief is to shed the burden of what we have lost and instead look to the love we held so close and to celebrate the joy we had. Grief is the ultimate lesson in why, and how, we love.

I Demand Peace

Although evidence trumps anecdote every time, anecdote retains a personable and personal weight worthy of consideration. Evidence shows that very few people display heinous behaviour and fewer still would end up homeless, destitute, in need of the professional support I can offer in my job as a mental health nurse helping homeless people with "complex needs". I meet people every day who have done awful things and who have ended up homeless. Anecdote, on the other hand, would show that I meet people (a fraction of one per cent) who have committed the most repugnant and diabolical actions against other humans- sexual violence, sadism, murdering children and so on.
At times I feel swamped by violence, about which I have no control. I spend many working hours looking at the pragmatics, addressing specific needs for clients of the service such as putting formal mental health services in place, advocating for them at the council's housing department or creating a harm-reduction plan together for their drug addiction. But I also spend many hours trying to empathise, trying to understand their view of the world in the hope that my input will be appropriate, accurate and long-lasting. To point someone in the right direction I need to know where they have come from. I need to imaginatively place myself there to enable connection if they have come from a place of neglect and abandonment.
It is evidence that stops me being crushed. Proof and facts prevent me despairing. Despite all anecdotal experience, despite knowing a man (it's always men) who tortured his four year old daughter to death, despite knowing a man (it's always men) who stabbed his girlfriend to death so many times in the head the psychologist stated he was trying to "nihilistically dehumanise" her, despite all this I believe the default character of the average human to be based in altruism and selflessness. I have heard the worst things but I expect the best things. Evidence proves it so.
Also every day I meet other people- the victims, the survivors, those who dispute fate- who ratify the evidence, who give and share and divide their meagre winnings. Every day I meet the unprivileged 99% who love others with unexpected reciprocity, who request instead of demand, who possess deep warmth. These are the others of the evidence (of course there are blurred borders, slim shades on the Venn diagram where many people express their dark and light and shades of grey and it is a truism that we all possess these characteristics but it is also true that we mostly give or we mostly take- are we the lover or the loved?).
It would be easy for me to give up. It would be easy for me to sink into cynicism as I have seen many professionals do. The violence I am forced to learn of and its' results I am forced to witness scar me, gently but forever. I can unhear nothing I have heard. I am envious of the younger me and some of the younger people I work with who appear inured to the threat of trauma. I used to be, I thought, sensitive to the needs of others but luckily insensitive to the detrimental effects on me of their distress. But now, after Ruby, I am too sensitive to the needs of others and acutely aware of their heartache too. My defences are weak.
In the five years since Ruby died I have put a near-heroic effort into maintaining my mental ballast. For me to see the people I see at work every day, people who do the things they do, and for me to avoid persistent fluctuations in my life and in my mind I have to insist on an absolute negation of any violence or aggression outside of work. Home life is peaceful (this takes a little luck but is mainly about effort). I avoid pubs and places of conflict. I have disengaged with my previous passion for international news and current affairs (my explanation is traditionally "self-preservation" but is more specifically about avoiding stories of violence and heartlessness). Some people I know have difficulty managing their anger and I have to avoid them. Anyone I know outside of work who has lost their temper in my company, anyone who lets their frustrations and anger evolve into abuse or aggression, gets a non-negotiable cold shoulder.

I demand peace. I need not stand for an alternative and I will refuse to do so. Evidence shows that humans want to live together and in peace, parochially and globally, and so do I. I am tough, I know I am- I have survived the death of my child, so far- but I am not hard. And for me to bend without breaking I must live in peace.

Wild Camping in the Mourne Mountains

When I was nine years old and living in Norway I joined the Scouts. I lived in Scandinavia from aged nine to fourteen but it was such a formative experience it might well have been my entire childhood. In the Scouts we learnt how to chop down trees, make shelter, trap animals to eat, fish, make igloos, ski, and use anything nature could provide to help us survive outdoors. I could ski cross country, use an axe, catch fish through ice then prepare and cook it and make a shelter in the snow by the time I was ten. I had no major concerns about snaring a rabbit, preparing it for eating and then making a fire for cooking. I could shoot air rifles for hunting before I even got to Norway because my grandfather was a farmer and taught me how to shoot. I knew every knot, I could handle a knife like an adult, I could start a fire in minutes and could navigate with a map, a compass and, at night, the stars. I loved being outdoors, particularly in the woods.
But when I returned to England I got out of these habits, I was back in the city and life was pretty normal. I spent a few weekends camping in a tent when I was a teenager but otherwise I stayed indoors until only a few years ago, my late thirties.
I began to rediscover my need of being outside when I started running for fun. Running by the sea a mile from my house was exhilarating and running next to the hills and cliffs a mile in the other direction was awe-inspiring. But there is nothing like running through a forest. The undulations of the terrain, the columns of trunks holding up the sky, the damp smell, birdsong, a thousand shades of green, they all point to one very specific emotion deeply hard wired into the fabric of my brain by two million years of human evolution- they make me feel safe. In the woods I will find water, food, shelter, sanctuary. In the woods I am home.
My interest in bushcraft and camping have returned and so, when I felt able to justify buying the equipment I would need, and with amazingly loving encouragement from Claire, I set the idea in my mind of wild camping, fire-making, hiking and nights out under the stars (a major change though is that I am now vegetarian so there would be no hunting and that my ethos now would be based on leaving no trace behind).
So last year I bought some bushcraft and camping gear- rucksack, lightweight one-person tent, goose-down sleeping bag for four seasons, cooking equipment, and fire making tools- axe, sheath knife, folding saw, firelighters- with the express purpose of wild camping. Each weekend passed through 2017 and for one reason or many the conditions were never quite right for camping. Until now.

Last Saturday I woke to an eye-wateringly bright sun, 24 degrees celsius and a windless, cloudless sky. I decided to combine a hike up to the top of Slieve Donard in the Mourne Mountains with an overnight camp on a different hill which, in hindsight, was a misreading of my abilities. I also decided to take the more winding and stony path if ever there was a choice (on the rare instances that I took a path) but otherwise committed to hiking in straight lines off-path, traversing the shortest point from A to B. I drove two hours to Bloody Bridge, the gateway into the mountains, threw my green canvas Swedish army rucksack over my shoulders and I tramped up and around, up and around, over streams, across gullies and eventually to the base of Slieve Donard. The final 850m ascent took three hours and was such extraordinarily hard work I had to rest for twenty minutes at the top and, before the descent, do a "body scan" for any telltale signs of arrest or collapse. I seem to be in one piece although melting in sweat ("sweat is fat crying" I was told by a personal trainer) but happy and very, very humbled. My knees were shaking and my quads were burning but I was buoyed by awe.
From the summit of Donard I had the perfect view, the Mournes were spread out across the west like a Tolkien fantasy, hazy with mist and shadowed by each other. To the north was Belfast. To the east was the sea as blue as Earth from space, dazzlingly so, and to the South was my goal, Chimney Rock Mountain. It was only a few miles away but I had to go down, down, down to the valley between mountains and then up the other side. So I followed the beautiful dry stone Mourne Wall (which totals 22 miles long over fifteen peaks) from the top of Donard, down to the valley, up towards Chimney Rock and then a final scrabble to the top for more views that dumbfounded me- Donard, the rest of the Mournes from a new angle and, most excitingly, the sea to the East where I would aim my tent for a 4am sunrise.
I pitched my tent on a small flat spot near some smooth rocks that were my table and chairs for the evening, cooked dinner, put on some warmer clothes as the temperature dropped and I watched the sun set over the mountains. I thought about my mum who would have loved it on the mountain even though she would not have ever been healthy enough to climb it. Of course I thought of Ruby too and I cried because she wasn't there to share it with me. I cried with the sheer beauty of it all.

The Mourne Mountains are old stone. If you pick up a pebble you would be surprised at its unexpected weight. The mountains are of the densest granite with a potentially overwhelming solidity. I could sense their mass, immovable against even the unstoppable force of time. That night, alone on the mountain with no-one for miles around, I felt utterly calm and protected. The mountains were sentinels watching me and watching the world move past because they are immense, quiet, without fissures, without fuss.
They reassured me into an early sleep and I woke at 5am to the most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen in my life, blasting onto the front of my tent, beckoning me. Then oats for breakfast, pack away, rucksack on, thank the mountain, walk towards the sun, leave nothing. Quick paddle in the ice-cold stream stained rusty from filtering through peat bogs on the way down to the sea. Back at the car park I sat incongruously in my air-conditioned car just behind its internal combustion engine spewing the result of burnt fossil fuels drinking a machine-made coffee and eating a highly processed chocolate bar. The cognitive dissonance was almost overpowering and I had a strong urge to climb back up into the mountains.

There is a great deal of discussion in mental health about "being in the present" and about being mindful of "the now" and there are fewer more profound ways of being in the present than being in mountains. Out of necessity I was utterly in tune with myself, my surroundings and their interactions throughout my weekend in the Mourne Mountains- I was astutely aware, with immediacy, of the air temperature, the humidity, the wind speed and its direction and steadfastness, compass bearings and the time of day due to the sun's position, when it last rained, the limitations of my own body, my hunger, thirst and so on.
In the end these essential things are simple, they are shelter, food, water, mobility. They are the basics, the bare minimum I need for survival, the very least I need to call somewhere home.

This is a good hour, right now

Right now- this hour- is a good hour, in an average day within a difficult week in a better-than-average year. This is the nature of grief- by the hour, by the day, by the week, by the year.
Some hours I cannot be or do. Some weeks I cannot be or do. Recently I could not be or do for weeks because I was paralysed into inaction due to the extraordinary yearning I had for Ruby that was breaking my heart all over again. It was physically painful- the yearning- my chest gaped, grabbing for her again. There were some minutes, some hours too, that my legs could barely support the heaviness of me as something, the Earth maybe, pulled me into it. There were some minutes, some hours too, that I wanted to be pulled into the Earth. And I would have if I could dissolve and permeate through the floor as I wished I could.
The yearning can be immense, sometimes monstrously, for a minute, for an hour, sometimes longer. I gape but nothing comes into me so I close my chest, I fold my arms back in, I breathe again. What am I to do? Everything passes.
Right now, this hour, I can write this. This is a good hour.


It was the anniversary recently- Ruby died five years ago- and the unexpectedness of grief surprised us again.
In the run up to the anniversary each year Claire and I habitually plan a day of relaxed order and simple goals. In the early years we cycled or hiked around the hills, being active and healthy and helping others by raising money for charity. During the recent anniversaries we instead arranged to meet family at the only significant location connected with Ruby- a bench with her name on in her favourite park (Crawfordsburn Forest)- for a stroll and lunch and then Claire and I would do our own thing for the day, picking up Tom from school, trying to have fun, normal stuff.
I felt a little different this year, less sure of my sadness, yearning less, more in charge. I had experienced an inexplicably tough few weeks before this and thought that maybe I had been subjected to my allocated quantity of grief for this anniversary period already. In the run up to the day itself my mood was stable and I was able to cope with stresses better than in previous years. I was confident, I could be a rock to others. The day itself was relatively uneventful, my mood was flat and I was seemingly unaffected by the weight of occasion.
But for a week after that day I became anxious and irritable and thereafter I was angry that I had lost control of my emotions, assuming I ever really had control. I shouldn't have been surprised that this anxiety kicked me when I was feeling confidently in charge- during grief one should always expect the unexpected- but I was initially angry with myself for losing my autonomy. It's five years down the line, I'm seasoned, I know what to do, I'm a mental health professional but the sudden impotence was jarring.
So I was anxious for a few days and truth be told, pretty shitty to be around. Claire deserved a holiday from me, a couple of work colleagues exercised great patience and restraint because of my insolence and, even though I genuinely tried as hard as I could I was no fun for Tom to be with for a while. The lack of control over my mood and my anxiety angered me, even the potential for self-actualisation seemed unattainable.
And then, as suddenly as it had dissipated, a sense of insight and freedom returned. Just a day to start with, a warmer connectedness to myself and a gentler treatment of my guilt and discomfort. Gradually, over a few days, I became more me (almost "more human" but then what is more human than grief and its peculiarities?) and I returned to a sense of routine and familiarity. I was post-anniversary. And a strange one it was too in its own way with its own identity.
Maybe I was complacent before the anniversary, assuming I could cope without the active input of insightful coping mechanisms. Or maybe I wasn't complacent- we had made plans after all, we had discussed how we felt, what we wanted from the day- but instead I had simply been affected by the unpredictable nature of grief.
Whatever the reason for my difficulties on this year's anniversary I am to remain vigilant during important dates and I must, of course, expect the unexpected.
I remain without Ruby. But right now, this hour on this day, I can write this and that's OK.