Life is short. Oh how I hate to rely on a cliché but it’s truth has been brought home to me this week through a number of experiences. Now, before you proceed know this: this letter starts of with some pretty grim stuff but I promise you I turn it around at the end!

This week I went to the funeral of a friend who died from Covid. He was 33 years old and had no underlying conditions. He lived next door to me with his girlfriend. They had found each other after years of feeling like they may not find anyone. They had plans that included a proposal, a marriage, a mortgage, a baby and a picket fence. Now, she is left to live a life she never chose. She’s angry and I can’t blame her.

I’m also losing my mum. She’s not going anywhere immediately, but day after day, I see Parkinson’s take a little bit more of her. It’s not always a clinical decline. Mostly, it’s a mental decline brought on by the very real and visceral anger she feels about having the disease. These were her twilight years; they were supposed to be her golden years where she was supposed to be able to enjoy the lightness of responsibilities shed. Instead, she’s fighting her own body just to get up, get dressed, get out.

We all saw what happened to Arthur Labinji-Hughes. His life was devastatingly short. I don’t need to explain to you why we can’t ever forget that little boy and many others like him.

And so, while today’s letter may have packed an emotional punch that sits a little uncomfortably, here’s where we turn it around. I say ‘we’ but I actually mean ‘you’.

Because your days and your life are too fucking short to be tying yourself in knots over stuff that other people have done or said. They hurt you, they discarded you, they treated you badly, they were thoughtless, selfish, stupid. Whatever it is, it sucks and it feels shitty and you’re mad that they made you feel that way. In no way am I undermining those feelings that you’re feeling. They’re real AF and I hear you.

But, is it worth it? You don’t have to forgive them, you don’t have to like them, you don’t have to do anything but you do have to look after yourself and, the cool thing is, you get to choose. I’m not saying it’s easy - this isn’t a glib, inspirational post on Instagram. It’s absolutely not easy to choose to let go, to refocus, to change your emotional course. It’s hard and takes a conscious, Herculean effort but it’s an option that is always open to you.

And it’s always a great privilege to have options because some people, quite simply, don’t.

Don’t take that for granted.

Go forth and squeeze all the fucking joy out of the day in spite of the shit.