None of us chose to be here, we didn’t ask to be born, but here we are regardless. We didn’t chose our childhood experiences, we didn’t chose faulty neurological pathways over healthy emotional cultivation, yet here some of us are, responsible for ploughing new neural tracts with shoddy equipment and pesky compulsions to knock pieces off ourselves. Those of us who appear the weakest are more courageous than many will ever appreciate or recognise.

Suffering visits us all, as the crocodile will tell you, to live is to wait forever and a day in murky waters for something meaty to wander within range of your jaws. For some gloom doesn’t just pop by for tea, it moves into our bedrooms and though we plough away we can’t turn that gloom back into the ground or swallow it whole.

One day you wake up and realise life has been a series of fallen dreams. You sit cold and alone surrounded by the ruins of what once upon a time, in a land achingly similar to this one, were glorious castles. You never truly believed those castles were built for you and you wonder why you’re still foolishly trying to master this ploughing business. All you ever wanted was to belong to the damn CEPA (Chartered and Enthusiastic Ploughers Association), grow some frickin tasty cabbages in your field with adjoining cosy castle!

Sitting among these bricks, crumbling like the scattered pieces of my heart, wondering where to lumber gracelessly to next, an arid desert stretches out before me and I fear those shimmering mirages that will unceremoniously spit me out the other side.

I remember being with you in the garden at Costa Del Pat’s (ssshhh) chasing the giant bubbles you were blowing with your Minions wand and bubble solution. I remember us sitting in the “crazy” golf course “self-soothing” with some hot chocolate and Fredo bars. How I longed for us all to find peace, I wished I could reach in and save you but that lonely magpie was always hopping into my peripheral vision, scraggly and scruffy looking – where was it’s iridescence? To me you shone like stars and I wish that one day soon you will meet people who see your shimmer and treasure you for it, most importantly I wish for you to feel worthy of it. I wish that for me too but it feels so very unreal.

It’s human nature to sense the future through the haze of the past. Those who allow hope to paint a new future are called dreamers. I want to be a dreamer again.