the cave

please don't go back in, 10/04/24

I wake up to birdsong. Laugh quietly about the time Gordon Brown said that was one of the markers of children not living in poverty, back when he became our surprise Prime Minister, over ten years ago now. That’s always stuck with me. I remember everyone saying that was ridiculous, there are far more important things than waking up to birdsong, surely? Now, I wonder why nature is seen as symbiotic with who we are instead of the very essence of who we are. Of course waking up to birdsong is a necessity. If you don’t, somewhere deep in your bones, you know you are in a container.

I think to myself about how he might have been a poet. Maybe all the politicians secretly are. I feel lucky I found the strength to call myself one. I press down my cafetiere, grateful to have one. I sit in the silence of my thoughts, and I can see light. Breathe, two seconds, savour it.

At night, I re-read old diaries before I sleep to remind myself of where I’m going (not where I was), and I see my thoughts turning like hands on a broken clock, fighting against the current of the future. Now, they turn more in-time, steady, and in line with the seconds. I’m reminded of things I miss about myself, too. My drive, my work ethic, my passion. But then I remember how it was all rooted in fear of failure, and I’d like different roots. Hope, perhaps?

I go to my band’s studio, The Crypt, to play piano. I’m still in disbelief about that. How did I get here? Lucky. Who knows how much longer it’ll be there for? No. Imagine if it’s there for as long as I live. Imagine that, instead of constantly worrying about and putting energy into when things are going to end.

I sing in church-turned-venues with people I’ve only just met, and in the warm up, we pick a note, or a sound, and the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard ricochets off the wall like soft, painted bullets. I speak to people. I connect to people and meet them where they are, accepting the lines between us. I revel in someone telling me I am a ‘safe’ person. That is beautiful. My biggest strength.

I could focus on what I lack. But I am so lucky to have arrived here, and after my twenties, after benefits, never making enough money, ever, after experiencing the music industry, ill-mental health, physical illness as a result; I know the ephemerality of this moment, and that somehow makes the moment more special, because I know it will end.

I spoke to my best friend recently about the ‘divine self’ and how we reject it. I’m not sure I ever knew mine until now. Last year, I found it. It was a total shock! Moved my whole world, shook me to my core.

I come up with a metaphor for what I’ve gone through with my therapist. We liken my experiences to a cave. I picture the walls, I hear water dripping off them, terrifying and dark. I always knew there was an exit. But there was something comforting about that cave; I knew the limitations.

Remember those jumping flies who had a lid placed on them? And the baby flies after that only ever jumped a certain height, they wouldn’t go any higher, even when the lid was lifted. I am telling myself to try going higher. Higher, higher, higher, gone.

I leave the cave. The pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of change. I shout back, “it’s beautiful out here”, and my words are felt more than they’re heard. A few eyes look up, then quickly dart away again. Some of the people I love most in the world don’t follow, and that is very painful. But…in their own time, from their own cave.

We try to save people from our childhoods. And we all wear masks as we grow up, finding and becoming drawn to the other masks we think we understand, we know we can interact with. Life is one big masquerade, and it’s hard to take your own off. It is so hard to be the person without one. Vulnerable, big target on your head. But I would choose to live this way every time. Bare. Flawed. Free. Open to it all.

I realise who I’ve actually been trying to save, and I allow myself the grief of being unable to save them. Relieving myself from the burden of being someone’s saviour means I can meet them where they actually are, like how waves meet in the ocean. And it means a line is drawn in the sand. I can finally see the edges of my outline. I can see my face in the mirror and recognise it as my face. Here is how I am different.

I live, I lose, I’ve lost before - that’s how I know I’ll ‘have’ again. I sit with the un-comfortability of it all, just like I’ve sat with it before. Cycles, patterns, some harder to break than others. I pick myself up, accept what I cannot change, allow myself the space to grieve, then dust myself off and remember who I still have, who is out the cave with me, next to me. We are never, ever alone, even when we feel our most alone. And we have to be brave enough to walk alone, so we can walk ahead to find the people just round the corner.

I feel a sense of belonging I’ve never felt before. To the world, to myself. I belong here.

Our lives are just stories we tell ourselves. It might as well be a kind one.