Moving forward is all very well. Moving forward is what life is about, and I by no mean regret my headlong passage into my own future. But occasionally, it helps to stop tor a moment, and glance backwards. To set briefly into my mind who I was, before I can forge once again into who I am now.

I chose to walk back briefly, to see where I’m coming from. And then fate conspired, spun me around and sent me back there again within the month. Looking at myself in a Shetland mirror, and indeed in an Aberdeen one, I could suddenly see the changes. I’d been sitting talking to myself, and not noticing the vast differences, because I focussed on the similarities. Seeing, speaking to my closest friends, I suddenly realised how much I have changed.

Confidence. Confidence is the first change I noticed. I was afraid, in many ways, of my past self taking over. But I can wear this city like a new suit. I am utterly at home here, and that comes through in everything. Friends in Aberdeen expressed how surprised and happy they were to see me looking so unbreakable, so unbroken. Sudden;y I had a flash of what they might be seeing when they looked at me, and I realised that in confidence is comfort. I am more comfortable in who I am than I have been in years, and this shines out.

Restraint. Somewhere along the line, I have fallen into good ways, as von Lipwig would say. Somewhere along the line, I’ve realised that there is an incredible strength in having an ability and not using it. There is strength in restraint. My need to use my abilities in all their forms came from a deepseated fear that I might never get to use them again. I have never been a man to plan ahead, to look further than the end of next week, next month. While I am still struggling to plan

a future, to peer into it, I am for the first time in my life capable of considering that a future will be there. No day is the last. So I can live at my own pace, not trying to do everything at once.

Strength. I never think of myself as a strong person. I’ve been broken down, time and time again, and I’ve crawled back upright, and struggled along like a trooper. But I struggle to think of that as strength. In my mind, a strong man would never have been broken, never have had to crawl out of the holes of distressing circumstance. So I frame myself as a weak man. With returning to Shetland, even for a brief period of time, I realised that I am stronger than I often give myself credit for. A very close friend has spent months telling me that, and it hadn’t sunk in. But seeing it in action…

So now, having glanced back at the past, taken stock, and realised how different I am from who I thought, I can start once again to move forward. Confident in my strength, my self-restraint and my confidence, I can run ahead again. And maybe, just maybe, I can carry on doing the impossible.