-
Mourning a Loss: Why I’ve Taken a Break
Before reading ahead, please know that article may be a potential grief trigger. Usually, at this time of year I would be writing articles on having a minimalist Christmas, or why I don’t bother with New Year’s resolutions. Instead, I’ve been taking a break because last month I found myself dealing with something which still feels like a nightmare: the loss of my dad aged 74. Dad had been in and out of the hospital with low oxygen, and the last time he went in we were all expecting him to be treated and discharged like the times before. He’d not long received diagnosis of COPD; a progressive disease of…
-
The Truth About Our Treasures
Photo by Erriko Boccia on Unsplash The less I’ve lived with over the past few years, the more I’ve realised I can live without. I never needed all those gaming figurines to prove I enjoyed videogames. I never needed a huge collection of memorabilia and mugs. I didn’t need shelves and shelves of books to prove I love reading, and I never lost the knowledge I’d gained from parting with them. My identity was inside me, never on the outside. Back when I relied on the objects I’d collected to express my identity, the irony was that I never got a real chance to be who I was because I spent most of…