I don’t know why it is – something to do with a sinister misalignment of planets or just the whole, ugly heap of accumulated evil and ignorance in the world seeping into our souls – but almost without exception everyone I know who suffers from any kind of mental health issue is going through a tough time at the moment, and they have been for a while.Things feel particularly fragile right now. There’s a permanent anxiety whining in the air, a sadness, a sense that nothing’s right and the uncertain ground is always shifting under our feet, remaking the geography of our lives faster than we can map the changes.
We had the tragic death of Nick Cave’s son, Brexit and Trump and Leonard Cohen (add your own choice from the last year if you want) poured on top of the more acute and directly discernible horrors of our own lives – financial insecurity, bereavement, illness, the usual failures and disappointments. For my part, i’d like to apologise generally to family and friends if I’ve been inattentive/ratty/absent/unreliable/selfish/a pain in the arse (even more so than usual) over the last twelve months; for whatever reason, it’s been a bit of a struggle – and to others who may have found they’ve been going through the horrors more intensely than usual, just keep on doing what you’re doing – it’s kind of sort of almost keeping it all kind of together, and besides – what else are you going to do?
As my dear stepdad used to say, “It won’t always be dark at six 0’clock.” To which I almost definitely replied, “It won’t always not be.” But the point is that I’m just taking this moment to let the people I know who are struggling know that I’m thinking of you. And I’m there for you. So long as being there for you only means responding to a txt message once every three or four days. Because I’m struggling too, y’know? It’s a sad day in sad times. It can’t really ever be a tragedy when a man in his eighties dies – it”s all down to the Hayflick limit and shit – but now, possibly more than ever in my lifetime, it seems like we can’t afford to lose any more of our big, big heroes – there are a diminishing number of big, big heroes (Ali, Bowie, Leonard Cohen) shining their big, big light on our dark, dark world. Anyway. Enough, I never write this kind of thing usually.
Shane Murray
