THERE WERE a few different reasons why I stopped writing my column for a while last year. One of these, the main one, was that someone in my life was going through a difficult, debilitating time. It was nothing to do with me. It wasn't my problem. I couldn't do anything to help or to change the situation or to make things better but at the time I believed that I could do all of these things, writes Roisin Ingle.
I watched and I wondered and I began to obsess. I couldn't stop thinking about this person and the effect their troubles were having on them and on those who loved them and on the ones they loved. During this period I would sit down to write my column and all I could think to write about was the person and their situation and all the ways I could fix it - snap! - if only they would let me in.
But I couldn't write about it, of course. It wasn't my story to tell, my pain to articulate or my road to travel. And still, like a sliver of fishbone stuck in my throat, it blocked me from expressing myself. Or rather I allowed it to block me. I may have wanted to amuse and entertain and write about, say, the way my mother insisted on trying to communicate with me on the silent ("that means no smiling or encouraging expressions, mother") meditation retreat we went on, but the Thing I Couldn't Write About kept floating back into my consciousness like a cloud.
One tearful morning I realised I couldn't do this any more, couldn't fake it, couldn't write another word that wasn't tinged with the sadness and confusion I was feeling. And in my patented dramatic fashion I took this to mean I could no longer write this column. No, nay, never, again.
So I wrote my farewell column - goodbye cruel columnist world! - took leave of the radio show I was presenting and threw myself a party with hired cutlery and a whole poached salmon and a jolly clown for the children in a dear friend's house by the sea. At one point my boyfriend's nephew, Sir Stefan of Portadown, wondered aloud what we were celebrating. "I mean I'm not being funny but Róisín has just lost herself two jobs," he mused. His words made me smile. He was right, of course, and for a moment I wondered had I made a mistake. But there was liberation and learning in this act of letting go.
I've been forced to forensically eyeball myself in this past year. It's been a thorough examination of the good, the bad and the really, really ugly.
Good stuff: I discovered last year that if someone in trouble needs me, then I will be there, even if what they are asking me to do is a terrifying challenge, even if I am not sure I am capable, even if what I actually feel like doing is slamming the door and running the other way. Even then the good in me will say, "yes, of course", and worry about the small print later.
The small print will read something like this: "The participant should be aware that this good deed may turn out to be the most excruciatingly difficult thing they have ever done; at certain points the participant may want to poke their eyes out with a hot poker rather than continue; they may also experience a spectacular fall-out with someone they love deeply as a result. They will probably take to the drink in the name of self-medication. Terms and conditions apply, some pretty nasty ones."
Bad stuff: In a crisis I can often have little patience for people who don't agree with my way of thinking. I force my views down other people's throats. I pretend to be listening, but really I am just waiting for someone to slip up, to falter, to expose their ignorance, so I can bear down with my superior understanding and woe betide you if you don't bow or at least acknowledge my higher wisdom.
Really, really, ugly stuff: Sure, I can be the world's most compassionate do-gooder but only on my own terms. I will do good for you but you had better respond the way I think you ought to respond, otherwise I am more than capable of dropping you like a hot potato. And I hold grudges. I used to think I didn't but I now know I caress them, nourish them, make them so colossal that eventually I don't even know how the love was lost and where the grudge began. I only know I must maintain it, even when what I want to do most is forgive.
Thank you 2008 for giving me a deeper understanding of not just my flaws but of my ability to change. Thank you for reaffirming the fact that this one wild, precious life we've been given is all about learning, a learning that never stops.
Thank you for showing me that we are never given challenges that we cannot meet. Thank you for giving me proof that people can be stronger, braver, more resilient than they ever thought possible. Including me.
No resolutions. Instead I will spend this year flicking through a book called The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie. I am looking for help with being kinder to myself, something which almost always results in my being kinder to others. I flick open the pages for inspiration and my finger lands on a paragraph about shame.
"Shame blocks us. But self-love and acceptance enable us to grow and change. If we truly have done something we feel guilty about, we can correct it with an amend and an attitude of self-acceptance and love."
Today and this year, I will love and accept myself for who I am and where I am right now. At least I will try. It's all I can do. roisin@irishtimes.com