The 'Mist' in Optimist

As I take stock of 2024's shocking end, I try to find a future worth focusing on

To see how Sam Pepys spent this day 364 years ago, follow this link.

TRIGGER WARNING: Content in this post relates to attempted suicide.

DISCLAIMER: This post, while relating true events, is entirely one person’s perspective – i.e. mine. I don’t claim to know what’s going on in anyone else’s head. If I give an impression of someone else’s thoughts, it can only be my opinion.

This time last year, I excitedly hit ‘Send’ on my first newsletter as custodial tenant of Pepys House, on the cusp of launching a book I felt sure would bring joy and support to many, whilst acknowledging that the world was becoming a scary place.

The current custodial tenants of Pepys House, from left to right back: Storyteller Chip and Ermma – and from left to right front: Tito Kitten and Pippa Pips

Exactly 364 years ago, Sam Pepys began his 1661 diary by taking stock of his situation. Had I done so just one day earlier than New Year’s Eve, mine would have been similar to his: some concern for the immediate future, but generally positive.

Unlike Sam, our all-important foundations of life were largely and happily the same – living in the same House, just four of us: the kittens, Ermma, and me.

However, almost exactly like him, the past year had seen me grow my interest and involvement in politics, in a year which saw a change in the country’s governance that felt to many like only surface-level.

The world continues to be a scary place. War still smoulders on in Eastern Europe, and has been snowballing in the Middle East – all of which distracts nations from the devastation being wrought by an increasing number and magnitude of natural disasters caused by climate change.

Back here in the West, prices continue to rise – predominantly due to traumatic global events, but populist leaders have blamed these on their rivals close to home in order to seize power.

There are glimpses of hope. For starters, World War Three hasn’t broken out yet, and talks between various world leaders are scheduled for early in 2025 that might just quieten things down a bit.

But close to home, it seemed like every joy quickly attracted a qualifier. For example: I helped one friend beat an age discrimination case, another was diagnosed with cancer. We threw a wildly successful Christmas event, our kitten Pippa was diagnosed with a lifelong liver condition. My supposed heart condition turned out to be a symptom of a totally different ailment that got fixed in a single surgery, my granddad died of dementia on Christmas Day.

Even our trip to Disneyland for the last few days of the year wasn’t without angst: they’d completely ruined the Rock’N’Rollercoaster by swapping the music of Aerosmith for unexciting scenes of Iron Man floating about.

The evening of 30 December, though, was almost sublime. We popped in on our wonderful neighbours with gifts to thank them for looking after our kittens in our absence, and enjoyed a chat around their dinner table full of camaraderie, smiles, and laughter.

We went to bed that night looking forward to a Hogmanay party at Sam’s old local, The Black Bull, to be followed by a trip to share the last few days of Christmas with my family in Kent.

It looked like the year was at least ending on a high.

And then I took a phone call from my sister at 7am on New Year’s Eve to let me know our mum was in hospital after attempting to end her own life.

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Because of the events which followed that phone call, I’m now writing this from a position in which I can flip the above narrative somewhat. It’s easy to write a positive followed by a negative, but it’s just as easy to do it the other way around.

For example: a friend was diagnosed with cancer, but he and his partner enjoyed a beautiful Christmas. Pippa was diagnosed with a lifelong liver condition, but it’s manageable – even moreso knowing that I don’t have worries about my own health now. Disneyland had foolishly dampened some of their best rides – but it was still Disneyland!

Granddad died on Christmas Day. But he is now at peace, and usually distant members of his family will be returning together for a celebration of the memories he’d given us all.

And of course, Mummy Rose survived to join us for that celebration too. In fact, it’s with her permission that I’m writing about the subject. My sister and her wife are the heroes who saved her life.

But attempts at suicide don’t come out of nowhere. They’re symptoms of much deeper problems – problems that can’t be left untreated or sidelined without causing tsunami-sized ripples.

I guess that’s what this year is going to be about: making sure no concern is left unmentioned, no despair left to darken, no loneliness left unhugged.

Your support as a reader of this newsletter will be mahoosively invaluable. That’s why the least I’d like from you, in return for these words of mine, is a single word of yours. Reply to each post you read with just one word to let me know you’re there – whether you’d like to give encouragement, or are in need of it yourself.

For someone like me who’s struggling to support his family through the vocation of writing and storytelling, such acknowledgement is priceless. You can start by replying to this post with a word that means ‘Hello’ to you, but isn’t ‘Hello’. Take that however you like.
$;-)

Right now, though, I realise there’s a lot left unsaid in the above – so, for the first time, I’m going to end a post with…

To be continued…