2022 has been a difficult year for me. Bad turns in fortune came suddenly and in threes, and I barely managed at times. And yet here I am; it would be remiss of me to not count the good memories made, and the ways in which I have (hopefully) become a better person, life's eternal enterprise.

Not long ago I had a serious mental crisis brought on by a sense of being overwhelmed, and this has led me to rethink what really matters to me. Luckily, it also starkly gave me an answer to that question: my friends and family. I have a newfound appreciation for those who are there for me, and I want to cherish them while I still can.

There are a few aphorisms that I find to strike a chord with me and reflect my feelings on life. The first is "the only way out is through." It is from a poem written by the American Robert Frost, a poem set in the turn of the 20th Century, written as a monologue of the homemaker of a homestead tending to her husband's labourers. The reasons why this particular phrase is so resonant with me is for another post.

The second phrase is an Irish one: ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine. "We live in each other's shadows." The cursory interpretation of this seanfhocal is a message of human solidarity, that we all rely on each other to live. But I feel like this does not do justice for how it makes me feel.

Virtues which are never tested can only remain ideals. Likewise it is in times of hardship that friendship and its constituent virtues—compassion, confelicity, generosity, and patience—are really tested. A true, lasting bond, a conscious perseverance to be in a loving relationship with other people, anam cairdeas, is an act of volition, a choice to suffer with them, regardless of where that suffering comes from. Lives converge and soles become bound to each other.

I realise now that this is one aspect of the shadows in which we live. To live in the shadow of another is to be close to them. To walk through the vale of tears with them, and to suffer with them the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

A shadow takes on the form of whatever casts it, its gnomon. This is the second aspect of the shadows in which we live. The shadow provides shelter. It also embodies our darkness. To truly know someone is to know their capacity to love, their joys, their hopes, and their worst selves. To truly live with someone, especially through times of hardship, is to live with their worst selves. It means seeing them lash out, say cruel things, lose self-control, make mistakes, learn from those mistakes, not learn from those mistakes, to see them succumb to demise, to stare into the darkness with them, see that darkness in their eyes, and finally pull them away from the edge, or let them finally go past it with no return. We feel pain when they are hurt, we feel pain when they hurt us, and we feel pain when we hurt them. And yet we choose to endure that pain. It is at the border of darkness, in the burning crucible of pain, that bonds are tested, either breaking in the process or made stronger. Only people who go through this process together can speak of it and understand. This is one reason why it can be so hard for us to "talk sense" to friends and family who are in toxic relationships. We can speak the language of reason, pray in desparate sighs, but when people go to hell and back together they inhabit their own world and speak their own language.

There is one more aspect of the shadow I want to speak about. When we live the shadow long enough, we lose ourselves to it, and the lines between us become less clear. We become the vague shapes of those we love, in all their beautiful and ugly contours. If we are so close to those we love, we become their shadows. Many of us spend our entire lives coming to term with this, working out what this means. We inherit the traumas of our parents and their parents, we share our fears and painful memories with friends, we change the way our lovers see us, themselves and the world.

One of the most painful experiences we can suffer in life is to go through it alone. We all feel this deep down. Some people can overcome this pain. Most can not. The shadow softens the sting of being alive.

I write this in the dark morning hours of Midwinter. There is something about the long dark, An Dùbhlachd, that makes us contemplative. The long shadows and frost at the door maybe remind of us the frailty of things, how brief our lights shine before returning to that dark place, and how easily they can be snuffed out. It has certainly been on my mind. In the meantime I hope to cherish and hold close the warm lights of the ones I love.