The Song Remains the Same: Thoughts on Change and Unchange

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
The more things change, the more they remain the same.
— Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr

In this article I’m going to explore some thoughts concerning change and unchange that I’ve wanted to write about for some time.

The Words Remain the Same

Although I’ve kept a diary since I was fourteen years old, I rarely look back over what I’ve written. I might flick through my current journal to remind myself how I felt a week or so ago, but once a volume’s filled and put away, it tends to stay closed. The exception was when Fran and I were writing High Tide, Low Tide. I read every diary entry I’d written from our first meeting in May 2011, sourcing material to use in our book.

A few weeks ago, though, I decided to read one of my old journals, and chose the A4 day-to-a-page diary for 1984. It was a year of significant change: my first full year in London after graduating from university, a role as best man at the wedding of my two closest friends, a new place of work at the Parkinson’s Disease Society Research Centre, new colleagues, and new friends. Flicking through the entries, there were events, people, and moments I’d not thought about in years. There were others I couldn’t remember at all, such that I’d deny they happened if not for the evidence of my own handwriting. Did I really go to that party, have that conversation, entertain those thoughts?

Most striking of all, though, was how little I seem to have changed. Time and again I read passages from 1984 I could easily have written last year, or last week. The same doubts, fears, and insecurities. The same search for meaning and engagement. The same sense of looking for something just out of reach.

Stuckness and Drama

I recently met up with a friend I’d not seen since December 2019. Over a drink in one of my favourite coffee shops we caught up on what those two years have meant for us. Covid, of course, but there were other significant events and changes in each of our lives; some welcome, some not so much. Sharing with her gave me a fresh perspective on things. You don’t always notice slow or incremental change when you’re talking with the same people all the time. Back in March, I shared my profound sense of foreboding and loss at what the pandemic has wrought. More recently, I described how my underlying mood seems to have fallen from positive to low. Other aspects of my life have remained more or less unaltered. These include my key friendships and relationships, but also my sense of stuckness at work, and lack of clarity about career and personal goals.

Mention of stuckness reminds me of English artist Tracey Emin, whose memoir Strangeland I read years ago. Emin once told her then boyfriend Billy Childish he was “stuck! stuck! stuck!” with his art, poetry, and music. The insult was adopted by Childish and fellow artist Charles Thomson, who coined the term “Stuckism” for their art, claiming it “a quest for authenticity.” I’m probably not using it the way the artists intended, but what stuck (pun intended) in my mind was how the word could be simultaneously viewed as an insult and a label of pride and acclaim.

Much of my adult life was lived in a state of stuckness akin to being asleep. Not the restful sleep that refreshes and renews; more like being in a coma. I woke, or was woken, maybe fifteen years ago, since when my life has been anything but static. It’s been intense, dramatic, and changeable, and much of the intensity has involved other people. Not for nothing are CONNECTION and CHALLENGE my key values. It occurred to me that I may value intensity so much that I seek it out or create it if it’s not already present in my life. As I asked in my journal a few weeks ago, “Do I crave emotional drama to distract and disturb me from baseline depression and numbness?”

The Constancy of Change

The epigram with which I opened this article — Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose — was coined by French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr in 1849. It translates into English as “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” I take this as suggesting there’s a deeper order beneath the ups-and-downs we perceive as drama or change. It’s something I’ve glimpsed on occasion, most recently in relation to one of my best friends.

Ours has been amongst the most changeable and intense friendships I’ve ever known. There were times we weren’t friends at all. What I realised the other day, however, is that I feel incredibly safe and secure in our friendship. The insight is this: if I focus on the ups and downs, the things that have happened in the past and may happen again, our friendship feels dramatic and uncertain. But once I accept that change is an integral part of the connection we share, I can appreciate the underlying constancy of our commitment as friends.

This insight doesn’t mean there’ll be no further drama, in this friendship or my life in general. I’m sure there will be. I hope there is. But I see now that it doesn’t have to be one or the other. Stability and challenge can coexist.

A Need for Problems?

Karr’s words led me to an article titled The More Things Change, The More They Remain The Same. It’s well worth reading, but it was an excerpt from one reader’s comments that caught my attention: “Why is it that people need to have problems? I think we get bored, life is all about making things better we almost want to break something [in order] to fix it.” This is similar to what I said about my decades asleep at the wheel and my craving for emotional drama. Author Maya Mendoza claimed that “[n]o amount of security is worth the suffering of a mediocre life chained to a routine that has killed your dreams.”

But not everyone is looking for this kind of challenge. One friend told me she’s had enough trauma and drama, and craves nothing more than the stability of “a normal life.” In her situation I’d feel the same. The decades I look back on as insufficiently challenging were largely the product of privilege and good fortune. I could afford to be bored because I was lucky enough not to have experienced trauma, serious illness, abuse, or any of the other “dramas” so many have known. There are many who would exchange the circumstances of my life for theirs in a heart-beat.

The Nature of Change

I’ve been talking as though we can choose a life of stability or one of change. We can certainly invite change into our lives. I once made a conscious decision to dissolve the inner circle of friends model I’d lived with for years. It wasn’t easy but it profoundly improved the quantity and quality of my relationships. One friend told me she hates feeling powerless when change is imposed on her; the covid pandemic being the most recent major example. On the other hand, she holds herself open to opportunities. “Chosen challenge and change,” she said. “Are things I embrace willingly.”

But the opposite isn’t true. We can’t decide to have no change in our lives at all, no matter how much we might wish it. Change happens, irregularly, and often not how we’d want it to, but it happens. No aspect of our lives is immune. The people we care about and rely on, our role in those relationships, the places we inhabit, the society in which we live, and the world at large. Everything is subject to change. Some changes creep up on us so gradually we’re scarcely aware what’s happening. Others arrive suddenly and unannounced. The latter are often the most significant and impactful, whether we deem the impact good or bad. (And our perception may shift over time as we review past changes in the light of what came afterwards.)

Every new friendship brings change into our lives. Fran and I met by chance one day in May 2011 on the social media page of a mutual friend. Within minutes, we were friends, and have never looked back. It was different with another of my best friends. Aimee and I met through the mental health charity Time to Change but our connection deepened gently over time and it’s hard to pinpoint the moment we became friends. However it begins, no relationship remains the same for long. Fran and I discuss the principal drivers of change in our friendship in our book High Tide, Low Tide.

It would be wrong to give the impression we are in a stable, fixed pattern in which we always know what to do and nothing ever goes wrong. There is little stable or fixed about living with mental illness or caring for someone who does. Our friendship grows as we face the challenges of our long-distance, mutually supportive relationship. Fran’s health is inherently variable. Depression, mania, fatigue, and pain fluctuate — sometimes together, sometimes independently — and affect us in different ways. Her love of travel is a further challenge. It limits our ability to keep in touch, and can threaten Fran’s health directly as she moves beyond her established routines and supports.

Stability and Change in Dynamic Tension

Earlier, I said how little I seem to have changed since the 1980s. I was genuinely dismayed to realise I’m still dealing with issues, frustrations, and hang-ups I wrote about in my diary thirty-seven years ago. How much of our nature and behaviour falls within our power to change? Have I not been trying hard enough?

It’s a topic that comes up a lot in conversations with Fran and other friends. It won’t surprise you to learn I have no clear answers, although I believe meaningful change and growth are possible. I see it time and again in others, and in myself too. At some fundamental level I may be the person I’ve always been, and some of the doubts and insecurities I struggled with years ago undoubtedly remain part of my make-up. But in other respects I have grown.

I believe there’s a dynamic tension between the urge to improve (which is to say change) our situation and challenge ourselves in ways that are meaningful to us, and the comforting reassurance of whatever is whole, known, and stable in our lives. Whether stability means family, friends, home, work, or some inner resilience, it provides the grounding from which we can move forward. One friend of mine is working on making healthy changes in her life, despite feeling overwhelmed at the enormity of the task. She sometimes feels she’s making no progress, but as I wrote to her, “You keep moving. It might be baby steps sometimes but you never stay stuck for long. You are always looking for ways to move forward.”

This urge to grow, to push out and on from where we are, is echoed in the following lines from the Led Zeppelin classic, “The Song Remains the Same.”

You don’t know what you’re missing, now
Any little song that you know
Everything that’s small has to grow
And it’s gonna grow, push push, yeah.

Over to You

I’ve shared some of my thoughts concerning change and stability or stasis. These affect us all in different ways and I’d love to hear your thoughts. Do you welcome change or find it difficult to navigate? Do you yearn for stability or does it terrify you? In what ways do you feel you’ve changed over the years? In what ways are you the same?

Over to you. Comment below or get in touch. Our contact details remain the same!

 

Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash.

 

The Constant Gardener: How to Be Someone Your Friends Can Rely On

You truly are someone I can rely on in an emergency and at all other times.

In this post I want to explore what it means to be someone your friends can rely on. That might not seem all that special or unusual. Isn’t that what friendship is about? To an extent, yes. Friendship, certainly the mutually supportive kind I value most, implies a degree of commitment and trust that you’ll be there for each other. On the other hand, I think most of us would agree they have one or two friends they’d unthinkingly turn to in moments of need or crisis. It’s not that those friends are better or more important than the rest. Dependability is one role in the repertoire of caring, but it’s not the only one and it has consequences. What’s it like to be that kind of friend? Maybe you are already. Maybe you wish you were. Maybe you wish you had one. Let’s take a look.

The Steadfast Friend

Two words came to me when I began writing this piece: constancy (in the sense of being unchangingly faithful and dependable), and steadfastness (being resolutely or dutifully firm and unwavering). I’ll discuss constancy later but I find this description of steadfastness by Barry Walsh very relevant, albeit couched in the language of business leadership:

Steadfast implies a sureness and continuousness that may be depended upon. The steadfast [person] is dependable, reliable, constant and unwavering. S/he stays the course, follows through, develops good habits and keeps them.

In other words, we’re talking about someone who is able to offer a stable and reliable point of reference for others. This is captured nicely in the following quotes from our book High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend’s Guide to Bipolar Disorder. Here, Fran and I are discussing my role in our friendship, specifically that of being a safe haven.

The most important role you can fill is that of someone your friend can rely on, feel safe with, and trust to be always there. Fran has friends “who are designated to be the string of my balloon.” We keep her grounded in times of mania and prevent her from sinking too deeply when she is in depression. It is a cornerstone of our friendship that I am available for Fran no matter what is happening. We have spent many hours together when she has felt depressed, manic, anxious, afraid, or suicidal. There is little I can do to help on a practical level, but I can listen and talk with her. Above all, I can simply be there so that she knows she is not alone.

It’s especially valuable when Fran is in mania:

I once asked Fran what I contributed most to our friendship. She gave me the image of an oak tree, standing strong and tall. On other occasions, she has likened me to a rock or anchor, a still point of reference amid the uncertain tides of illness. I act as a buffer between her and the world and balance her thinking, which [when in mania] tends to be mercurial, dogmatic, and strongly polarised.

This degree of commitment is generally reserved for relationships with partners, siblings, parents or children. Thinking of me and Fran one friend asked, “Realistically, who’s got the time and energy to unfalteringly provide that level of care and dedication to someone outside your immediate family?” It’s a valid question but for me, it misses the point. Not everyone, whether living with mental illness or not, wants or needs the kind of connection that works for me and Fran. But pretty much everyone wants and needs people in their lives they can depend on.

What does steadfastness mean in practice? It means saying, as many times as your friend needs to hear it, I’m here for you. I’m not going anywhere. How can I help? – and not only meaning it at the time but following through. It means picking up when your friend calls or messages you, no matter what time it is, how your friendship stands at that moment, or how recently you were last in touch, even if it’s six months after the friendship broke down, because you promised you’d always be there and they believed you. I’m not necessarily talking about picking up a broken relationship. Things sometimes end for valid reasons. I’m talking about a commitment to be a steadying hand in a crisis, a gentle voice on the end of the phone, a safe space in which to talk, vent, or cry things out.

It’s not always easy, because the role is a function of the other person’s needs. There may be times you’re called on to take a step back and give your friend space because they have other things going on for them, because they’re doing better and don’t need you as much, or they’re having a really rough time and you’re not who they need right now. On the other hand, you may feel you need to hide or buffer changes in your life and circumstances so as to be the person your friend’s grown used to depending on. If you present as other than stable, solid, and reliable, maybe you’ll risk losing your role as the steadfast friend who’s always there for others.

This is something I’m working with at the moment, as I begin to explore my mental health more openly in conversations with friends and in my blogging. One friend said she felt less confident turning to me for support because she didn’t want to upset me or make my situation worse. I told her that’s not how things work for me. Being there for others, including hearing whatever they wish to share with me, never brings my mood down, depresses, or overloads me. Quite the opposite. Hopefully, my friend understood and was reassured.

Codependency and Over-Reliance

All this might sound as though I’m talking about an unhealthy degree of codependency, or putting yourself at someone else’s beck and call. It’s certainly something to keep an eye out for, and challenge if it begins to affect your relationship or wellbeing. Left unchecked, the consequences of putting other people’s needs before your own can be devastating, as they were for my mother. Her mental health deteriorated to the point where she was barely able to function. Ironically, she spent her final years depressed, anxious, and wracked with guilt for not having done more. Fran and I have found openness to be the best antidote to codependency:

Begin by speaking honestly with your friend about what is going on for you. Talk about the things you are able to do, but also discuss setting healthy boundaries.

There may be others with claims on your time and energy: young children, elderly relatives, other friends, or a partner. You may be ill yourself, or have problems and issues which require your attention. There are also limits to your skills, knowledge, and competence. No one can tell you where the boundaries ought to lie, and they may shift from time to time. That is something you, your friend, and the others in your life must work out for yourselves.

Actively encourage others to play their role in your friend’s care, rather than trying to do everything yourself. Keep an eye on your health and well-being too. It can be exhausting to support someone with illness, and you may need your own support team from time to time.

For more on this, check out How to Be Kind and Clever, Four Things It’s Hard for a Mental Health Ally to Hear (And Why It’s Important to Listen), and What My Mantra Means to Me: Healthy Boundaries.

The Constant Gardener

I’m fortunate to have had several healthy examples of steadfastness in my life. The first was the husband of one of my older cousins. I didn’t know him well but I remember the devotion he showed to his wife and stepdaughters. Nothing appeared too much trouble and I’ve held him as something of a role model ever since.

The second is a current friend of mine. Like me, she cares for a best friend who lives with mental health issues. She also supports a number of other friends. We relate well because we understand the particular demands – and rewards – of this kind of steadfast care. With characteristic insight, she once said to me, “Maybe we’re just these weird people whose forte in life is to be needed.”

My third example is the character of Marnie played by Susan Sarandon in the 2015 movie The Meddler. One moment captures Marnie’s generosity of spirit perfectly. The lines are delivered by her friend Jillian, played by Cecily Strong, at her (Jillian’s) wedding, which Marnie funded and helped arrange.

“Marnie, words cannot even begin to express my gratitude to you. After my mother died I couldn’t imagine being loved so unconditionally by someone who wasn’t my family.”

Staying with fictional characters, my fourth example is Samwise (Sam) Gamgee, in J. R. R. Tolkien’s epic fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings. Played by Sean Astin in the movie adaptation, Sam was Frodo Baggins’ gardener, but also “[his] steadfast companion and servant, portrayed as both physically strong for his size and emotionally strong, often pushing Frodo through difficult parts of the journey and at times carrying Frodo when he was too weak to go on.” According to the Open-Source Psychometrics Project, Sam’s top three personality characteristics are loyalty, kindness, and heroism. He’s also been called “a quintessential ISFJ” on the Myers-Briggs personality scale:

The ISFJ is known as the defender or protector, which is exactly what Sam does for Frodo. ISFJs are also known for their loyalty and quiet determination. Sam is willing to sacrifice everything to stand by Frodo’s side and save Middle-earth.

I used to be a devoted fan of Tolkien’s work, and ran a fan group called Middle-earth Reunion between 1996 and 2005. In one of my favourite stories for our quarterly magazine, I explored Sam’s steadfast service through my main character, William (Bill) Stokes. In the following excerpt, Bill finally comes to understand the nature of his role supporting his wife through her battle with cancer, and finds healing for the pain and guilt he’s carried since she died.

And it came to him, hard and sudden. If the second acorn — this tiny oak tree in the plastic carrier at his feet — was the gift of the Lady then he was Samwise Gamgee. Not warrior but steadfast companion, whose hands were not those of a healer but gardener of a line of gardeners.

In that moment he saw himself through Joan’s eyes. She didn’t see — hadn’t seen — him as a failure, hadn’t hated him for failing to make the disease go away. They had been married twenty-seven years and he had been what she needed him to be. Faithful friend, truest companion on the longest road. He was her Sam.

Not Aragorn, damn his eyes. Sam. The hands of a gardener.

Bill Stokes, grower of things. He knew at last what the last tree was for.

My final gardening reference is the character of Justin Quayle in the 2001 novel The Constant Gardener by British author John le Carré. According to one reviewer, the book’s title “refers to Justin’s determination to grow things, literally and figuratively. We see Justin gardening as a hobby, offering gentle but diligent attention to his plants. On a broader thematic level, gardeners never stop digging, and after [his wife] Tessa’s murder, Justin digs endlessly for the truth.”

This finds an echo in a talk I attended in September for World Suicide Prevention Day. Asked about this year’s theme, “Creating Hope Through Action,” mental health advocate and author Jake Tyler said the most important action he’d taken during the long months of lockdown was to nurture the relationships that meant most to him. He reminded us that connections require ongoing, dutiful, care in order to blossom and remain healthy. They also need room to grow. Fran and I discuss this throughout our book, most specifically in the following passage in which we describe one of our guiding maxims.

Open Hands. Open Arms. Open Heart.

This important principle reminds us not to hold too tightly to people, relationships, and situations. Healthy things grow, and to grow is to change. In the time we have known each other Fran has moved from mania to depression and out again. She has grown in self-awareness, and developed tools for looking after herself. I have learned a great deal about what it is like for someone living with illness, and how to respond to Fran’s needs and the needs of others. At times Fran needs me close beside her, at other times she needs space to grow independently.

“Open hands” recognises that change is natural, healthy, and necessary. It gives us permission to grow without feeling guilty or restricted. Imagine holding a small bird in the palm of your hand. It feels safe, protected, and cared for, but it is free to move, to grow, and even to fly away. “Open arms” reminds us that, no matter what happens, we will always welcome each other back as friends. “Open heart” connects our friendship to our wider network of relationships with other friends, family, and the people we encounter in our lives.

On that note, I’ll bring this discussion to a close. I’ve examined some aspects of being a reliable, steadfast, and constant friend. It’s not without its challenges but I believe they’re far outweighed by the rewards. The quotation at the start of this post is one of the most genuine, heart-felt, and meaningful acknowledgements I’ve ever received.

“You truly are someone I can rely on in an emergency and at all other times.”

Do you have someone in your life you trust always to be there for you? Do you fulfil the role of constant gardener for your friends and loved ones? How does it feel? I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences.

 

Photo by Avelino Calvar Martinez on Burst.