Mumbling about: the space we save for others
Introducing a recurring feature celebrating the unfinished thought.
A note: It’s now two months since I set up this newsletter (huge thank you to everyone who has subscribed so far), which makes it the perfect time to introduce this new regular feature: ‘Mumbling about’. The clue is in the title of this newsletter: I intend for this to be a place where I mumble and muse on topics all about mental health, writing and human existence (I mean that in a much less pretentious way than it sounds). I kick-started this newsletter with some longer essays, and I think it’s now time to introduce my shorter, perhaps more rambling features. After all, not everything needs a conclusion, not every problem can be solved, and not every thought can be let go of.
Please do comment your mumblings, your musings, your half-formed thoughts and unfinished feelings. Let your mind wander.
I started writing this piece about two weeks ago. It went something like this:
I write this in a coffee shop today, alone, for probably the first time since uni, when I thought I would look studious if I took my uni work to a cafe.
The coffee shop is made of glass, hugging the edge of a performance hall. Inside it’s all pale wood and black metal. I ordered a cappuccino and have taken a seat at a bench-like table looking out, primed for people watching.
Ten minutes have passed, my coffee still molten. I’ve just realised I’ve left the right hand seat at this table empty. The left is my spot. My spot as a child in the back of the car. My spot in the bed I share with my partner. My spot on the sofa. I leave the right side open for him even when he isn’t here.
And now I’m thinking about the space we leave for others.
I left that thought unfinished, as many good thoughts are, and am picking it back up now.
I started a new podcast this morning: The Wintering Sessions with Katherine May (who also writes a great Substack newsletter). The first episode was an interview with Penny Wincer, photographer and activist, author and carer. The start of the episode began with Penny talking about being a carer for her mother, who suffered with depression for much of Penny’s teenage years, before eventually taking her life.
One thing Penny said about her mother stuck with me:
“It’s such a short-term thinking to always put yourself last.”
Penny describes her mother as someone who put herself last, always. Eventually, putting the needs of others before her own was what broke Penny’s mother.
It made me think about empathy and care, and about how you cannot care for others if you do not care for yourself. I’d like to stress that’s not the same as that old adage (which I frankly don’t agree with) that you can’t love someone else until you love yourself. That puts blame on people who are likely already dealing with enough shame and hurt. However, if you do not reserve some of that care for yourself - that is to say, if you do not practise self-care - you can only expend all your care elsewhere for so long.
Trainee therapists are taught that self-care is a non-negotiable part of being a therapist. You cannot care for others if you do not also care for yourself. How can you provide support for someone struggling mentally if you’re struggling in some way too?
It’s therefore about finding that balance. It’s about the space we make for ourselves, our own needs, our own thoughts, and the space we must also make for the ones we care about.
But what about the empty spaces? The spaces you carve out for others, or that they carve out themselves, and then vacate. What occupies that space then? It might be grief or loss, or it might be freedom and relief. It is inevitable that we will make space for others in our lives, and that sometimes we may wish we could fill that space back up, plug the gap, plaster the hole.
We mould ourselves to fit around others. We mould ourselves around the curve of their body, beneath the weight of their needs. We do so willingly, begrudgingly, unwillingly. But it’s our space, ultimately. That space belongs to us. We can choose how to fill it or how to leave it empty, and there is no wrong path either way as long as it’s our choice.
What I’m reading: ‘Four Thousand Weeks’ by Oliver Burkeman and ‘I Didn’t Do the Thing Today’ by Madeleine Dore. These books are revolutionising the ways in which I look at time, productivity and being hard on yourself.