2018 is nearly done!  There were a few big mile stones this year but the one that hit home was the 20th High School Reunion. I had mixed feelings about acknowledging this. Two decades have passed, I live in a different country, and the friendships that have lasted are the ones I have invested in. Why dig up all the old acquaintances? But my friend Kat drew me out with an infographic on Facebook with a Happy House soundtrack. It didn’t take much.

Kat was our head-girl, diminutive in stature (we had to get her to stand on a box so we could see her above the podium) but larger than life, characterised by her generosity and kindness – and not a jot of that effervescent energy has diminished over the years. Together with a few other alumni she set up a fundraiser to raise school fees for pupils who need the financial support. 

Kat had tagged the event ‘Our Reunion, Our Stories, Our Legacy’. A reunion with a difference, less awkward posturing and more investing in the next generation. 

I found myself in the whatsapp group sharing in the intense flurry of messages  – emojis from Hong Kong and Amsterdam and lots of updates on families, careers and lives lived – reminiscing on all the wonderful, uncomfortable, cringe-worthy high school stuff. Most of it pretty standard. Except the stuff that wasn’t said. 

Into this emotional upheaval I threw Nanette , which if you haven’t seen I recommend you stop reading this, and watch that. Coupled with end of the year reflection, it got me thinking about how we use our stories to define our legacy, and more importantly, what do we leave out? I won’t spoil Hannah Gadsby’s show for you, but there’s a very key point she makes about omission, and its been on my mind for months. 

Here we had this reunion whatsapp group sharing stories of the beautiful babies, and loving partners and glittering careers. Add Instagram filtering out the dried on weetabix or the mummy blogs that glamorise the dirt as a paid for promotion for #fairyliquidcleans. The lifestyle influencers culturally appropriating everything at a whim #soblessed. The fake news.  The truth is obfuscated. Or photoshopped. Or rewritten. Or forgotten.

I’ve looked back at my patchy diaries, my half-finished blog posts and my email updates to family over the years. Highlighting the good stuff and down playing the harder stuff. Leaving gaping holes in the narrative. By toning everything down, and airbrushing the detail what have I forgotten in the process? So many things unsaid, along with all the grime and the shame, the mundane day-to-day. The head splitting hangovers, the prescriptions, the tears in the bathrooms, the mind-numbing commuting. Not all of it warrants high-definition recall, and a lot can and should remain private. But some of this bears remembering. 

My rock-bottom was scribbled down on a piece of paper in my wallet. I tried to find it the other day, but 11 years after the fact it has since been swept off my desk or lost on a plane, or crumbled up by the toddler while posting my credit cards through the floor boards.

It served a very important purpose. A tangible and real artefact that I could access at any point. A talisman against the madness that for a very long time felt incredibly close and extremely violent. Perhaps because I had it written down I have been lazy about remembering it. Today I panicked because all I have is a crystallised segment in my memory, a shard of it, dull from lack of use. Will that be enough to ward off the furies when they come for their due?

Probably not.

My rock-bottom wasn’t gritty. Or horrific. There have been toothpaste commercials with more implied menace. Because my journey to rock-bottom wasn’t linear I had been near there before and in much, much worse places but not felt that gut wrenching sickness. That day I did. I made a phone call. And because this was not new, there were one or two people who knew what was going on behind the layers of denial. The beaten to bits, arrogant, fuck-you-I am-fine me. The part of me that was tired.  The part of me that wanted help but couldn’t ask. I called the people who would tell me the truth when I asked for it. One was a friend. The other was my psychiatrist. It was pure luck one answered the phone. I don’t know what prompted me to dial that number that day. But I did. And here we are.

The darkness feels different today. The chaotic urgency of before has been replaced with a soporific distraction. Having rebuilt myself and then a life, I am very proud of what I have achieved in those 11 years since. I set out to fulfil some of that potential I had when I finished school. And now 20 years on, I have managed to meet some of those goals and while I have failed at many more, I am still here. 

I’ve built up enough distance from the unmanageability of my past that I am less in danger of stumbling back. But I am in much more danger of harming myself through straight forward neglect. And I’m not sure which is worse. One is damning and explosive, the other slower, more insidious, and – lets face it – more likely to win.

Like any classic story, the counter to the darkness then, is the truth. And telling the truth. Not just sitting with it as a mind-experiment, letting it roll over your tongue until it dissolves and you’re left with nothing to say. The truth. Your truth. So I wrote it this as a starting point. A buffer, a stab at self-care. An acknowledgement that with that little bit of luck you need a ton of hard work to keep on keeping on, and I owe it to myself  to keep well. And maybe, this helps prompt you to tell yours, to pick up the phone. And if we do that we have a chance at shaping our legacies, and get given the chance to give back.