A chara, – Whatever you do at this time of year, don’t be hard on yourself. Remember that you mostly added to the good and made it better.
Wink at yourself in the mirror, remind that face of the wonderful life that breathes behind it and that you are here, not for any reason but simply because you are.
December is paved with trapdoors to the past and there is nothing as unpunctual as grief. It never keeps appointments.
It is a mirror that reflects an absence. An unexpected call. A silence on the other end of the line. It sends itself invites to my quietest moments and I am always in when it arrives.
Inside Ireland’s music festival industry: `You can haemorrhage money very quickly’
Perimenopausal and menopausal skin: How to tackle the most common problems
Cáit O’Riordan: ‘I quit the Pogues at 21. I got sober ... didn’t see Shane much’
Justine McCarthy: Philanderer Daniel O’Connell lies in a hero’s grave, his wife Mary in an overgrown tomb
I feel strangely invigorated when it leaves, after it is done poking around and prodding me with its cold fingers of memory.
It is a counterpoint to the bird bone melody of living.
So, go gently as you go. – Is mise,
BILLY O HANLUAIN,
Dublin 12 .
