I had a business fail, an 8 year relationship break down (got cheated on) and in the middle of all of that they found a syrinx in my spine and a few months later I got diagnosed with Chrohns.

On my desk is a rock, just a hand sized piece of chalk off the foreshore near me but it has special meaning, I picked it up at 2am on the night I decided I wasn’t going to kill myself after flipping it from hand to hand for several hours while sat watching the moon on the water.

Now it sits under one of my monitors and when work starts to stress me out or life generally I pick it up and think back to 6 years ago.

These days my health is under control, the chrohns is stable, the medication works for quality of life, I have a good well paid job and I met the love of my life so between now and that beach is 6 years and a universe apart but man, you don’t see the signs until afterwards eh.

No one knows what the rock means to me, to everyone else it’s just a paperweight.