I went for a coffee today with an old friend who I hadn’t seen for some years. Our children grew up together, but once there were no more school gates to meet at, and playdates to share, we saw less of each other, until all the demands of life intervened and we lost touch. The years in which we had grown older, confronted challenges, experienced loss, made life changing decisions, reflected on what it is to love and be loved, all needed to be shared.

No one gets to middle age unscathed. There is so much to look back on with joy and gratitude, so much to look forward to with hope and anticipation, but there will inevitably have been experiences which have been painful, bewildering, and sometimes just plain sad. To expect anything different is to ignore the fact that we are human.

We are surrounded by solutions. Ways to relax, steps to be happy, lifestyle improvements, aphorisms to repeat, ‘clean’ sleeping, miracle vitamin supplements, meditation, decluttering, exercise regimes, dietary advice, the list is endless. Sometimes one is exhausted just pursuing all those things that will make us feel better. And if we don’t feel better, then it is our fault somehow, we just need to try harder, look somewhere else, do more.

There are many things we can do that will help us, I am not discounting any of the above, however sometimes we don’t need to find a solution or erase the feelings with a self-help balm of one sort or another. There is no shame in struggling from time to time, in feeling lost, in wanting to stop and rest for a while because you have been battered and just need to breathe. Sometimes all it takes is just listening to someone, without advising, solving, cheering. Bearing witness to the experience, acknowledging it, allowing it its weight and importance for that person.

The coffee went cold in our cups, the cakes were left half eaten. Without noticing when it happened, I found that my friend’s hand was in mine. And it didn’t feel strange.  Neither of us had tried to find solutions for the other; we had simply born witness to the lives we had led during all the years, and walking home afterwards, that felt the most uplifting and profound thing of all.