The secret my father had been shielding me from for years finally,, violently and explosively came out just as I turned 14 years old. My mother is an alcoholic. When she relapsed as I became a teenager, it was bad.

I saw my father draw a line in the sand with my mother and when she crossed it, to protect his children, he followed through with the consequences. This was really healthy for me to see because it showed me the value in standing up for yourself. It set me on the correct course.

I often joke with my father…

Reflecting on my trials and tribulations of the the last year I have stumbled across a valuable lesson that I want to share with you all today. It is this lesson that I have been mulling over the last couple of months since I last wrote to you all. It is now that I have put some healthy distance between myself and those events I suffered through, that I’m able to now get this all down on paper and share this with you all. I wouldn’t wish any person to learn this lesson the hard way: like I did.

In…

Thank you so much!

In feudal Japan, when the Samurai weren’t waging war, they would tend to their garden. This always struck me as a bit unusual. Weren’t these the most cut-throat and efficient killers in the far east? What were they doing gardening?

Maybe they knew something which we today don’t?

I grew up in a rush and spent the first five years of my adult life steaming ahead. I was determined to crush my goals and land my dream job. Now in my mid-20s, I’ve been completely successful in this regard. I’ve been lucky.

This isn’t an article about achieving professional success…

Photo by Karl Fredrickson on Unsplash In the immediate months and years following the end of the Second World War something strange happened. The population buy-and-large seemed to "forget" all about the war, almost immediately. Life picked up and carried on- relatively speaking- from where it had left off before. But people didn’t really forget, did they? They didn’t want to remember. At this time of writing here in the UK, just under one third of the population have now been vaccinated against Covid-19. The data is looking good, the end of the Pandemic is in sight. So when the…

This year has hands-down been the worst year of my life. I was forced out of my home just as the first lockdown hit due to my neighbour’s extreme anti-social behaviour. I was then seriously injured in the line of duty and left temporarily-disabled overnight. I spent the next half-a-year as a prisoner in my own body as the damage done was so delicately repairing I could do no exercise at all. My mental health for the first time in my life took a tumble and threatened to destroy my relationship with the woman I so dearly love.

I barely…

Life isn’t always smooth sailing.

I recently found myself sailing through a particularly violent storm. At my lowest moment I was fortunate enough to receive some incredible advice:

“You’re going to make it through, there’s no question about that. But when you do make it through to the other side, you want to make it through with all your friendships and relationships in tact. You want to make it through still being with your partner and able to laugh with your mates. …

“Where are you going?” thought the Policeman stood under the train station’s entrance taking shelter from the rain.

We’re all on a journey of some kind, and I miss you.

I miss the person I was at the start of this year; passionate about my work, joyful and optimistic. I’m on a journey to try and find him again.

Everything that touches you leaves an impact on you, changes you. Sometimes a traumatic incident “changes you forever” a colleague told me, “you just can’t recover from it”.

I don’t want to change, I don’t want to be bitter or angry…