The Road Ahead

The road to recovery, the journey through the tunnel, whatever you call it, is a path everyone has been on, whether short or long. It's filled with forks and potholes that can't be smoothed over by the velvet, glistening Tarmac of therapy, or that new quick fix putty they have. It's a bumpy, and frankly terrible, path. And that is even if you can get on it.

A new year approaches and for some, who haven't started to input their new destination in their sat nav, the journey ahead is confused and bewildered. You can put up with the country roads; bendy, full of turn backs and with the faint smell of animal faeces, marring the beautiful scenery, but until you stop ignoring that smell: you will never join the hundreds on that road to recovery. 

The problem? We never drive side by side on this road. You wish your problems were average (money, partners, weight after Xmas you can't shift) but the problem is you aren't like everyone else. You wish that in your feeling of abnormality and sadness you could find a common soul, who was in a similar position, and could have group therapy and dance off into your twenties or thirties or whatever with your repaired self esteems.

But maybe that’s the matter with things that depress you. Maybe everyone’s problem is different and that’s the rub: Our problems isolate us. And the only therapy is to be found on your own solitary journey through troubled years. A journey we don’t want to start as it means packing up our suitcase and filling it with our sad memories, our anger and resentment and all the things that make us so unique in our depression.

Sometimes the man at the toll booth won't let you in because your vehicle doesn't look broken on the outside. But on the inside, the leather is cracked, the rev meter has lost the will to try and count such small numbers and the mile-o-meter is sick of doing more miles than necessary driving in circles. No one really expects you to be broken. We all want someone to see into our mind, past the front and realise that maybe, just maybe, we are deeper, sadder and so much more broken than they ever saw, and help.

And there is the sad truth about the road to recovery. Its hard to get on and not pleasant. But there is always the homeward stretch that fills you with warmth as you put your foot down and burst onto the dual carriageway into the sunlight. The grass may not be a lush emerald green on the other side but at least it won't be burnt by resentful fires and littered with withered plants. Hey! Maybe there will even be a few daisies.Get on the road, pack up your troubles and hopefully, next year you will be able to read this and not identify with any of it. Start your new year with the resolve of it being just that bit better the previous. And on one new years eve, you will have moved on, with only life lessons in hand, without even knowing it.

"Everything will be okay in the end. If its not okay, its not the end" - John Lennon

Happy New Year!

M xxx