Change forecast for 2024

I have written before about losing the will to live, and how it’s not the same as having the will to die. It’s just, as it sounds, that after one’s heart is shattered as mine was with Charlie’s death, it’s all too easy to stop caring about one’s own wellbeing.

When Charlie died, I lost both my will to live and any semblance of joy. Slowly, over the past year, I have begun to feel moments of happiness. They are, sadly, always tainted by Charlie’s loss, but they are no less real. They’re just not the all encompassing joy that I felt when my family was whole.

More recently, my sense of responsibility for this body I inhabit has begun to evolve. In the months after Charlie’s death, I wished I could die. In the months that followed, that feeling morphed into simply not caring about my wellbeing. The only moments of brief “happiness”, few and far between as they were, came from food - and not the type of food that was good for me. Any shot of dopamine was brief respite from the pain. If that meant I was eating garbage, so be it.

Of course, I do realise that this was self-sabotage. I know enough to know that sitting around watching television and feasting on carbs and chocolate bars was not doing either my body or my mind good. I simply didn’t care.

As of December, 2023, two years after Charlie’s death, we had survived both the dreaded first year and the equally dreaded second one too, which we had been warned can be harder than the first. I was already on the path toward building my company, which I’ll be launching in a few months. And there I was, having let my physical health get to a place where my death wish is well on its way to reality.

But now I have hope for the future. Holidays like Christmas are still shit and probably will be for many years to come but the days in between, the ones without associated memories, are getting better. I have finally come to a point of caring about my welfare, just when I’m at my least healthy.

Over the course of my life, arguably my greatest weakness has been the fear of failure, or of disappointing others. It has frequently prevented me from even trying things. It has often also caused me not to share what I was doing just so that if I failed, no one else would know.

Losing Charlie feels like a failure that everybody witnessed. Rationally, I know I did all I could. Emotionally, I’ll never feel I did enough.

Likewise, mistreating my body as I have feels like a failure I couldn’t hide.  Deciding that 2024 will be the year when all that changes is a big step. Sharing that I am taking that step is terrifying. What if I fail again?

Well, there’s no going back now. I am pronouncing 2024 the year when I finally start looking after myself (James’s health is also my priority but that’s another story). Dying isn’t an option. I have too much to live for. So, hopefully this time next year, I won’t be recognizable. Hopefully, in the meantime, I’ll come to enjoy salads and protein shakes!