Mending The Cracks

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Having a mural of yourself on a wall in Dublin is a bit mad. Mad in the sense that it is surreal. It has been a great honour, and isn’t something I take for granted. Joe Caslin is an incredible artist. Follow his work. He’s an even lovelier person, and I’m happy to say that he’s now a friend.

The project has a meaning to me that is incredibly powerful. I suppose it’s because mental health struggles often feel like they’re endured in isolation. That we’re the only ones who feel this way. But in reality, once you scratch below the surface, we’re all facing into something. We all have struggles, flaws, mistakes, regrets. Every single one of us. We’re cracked porcelain. We’ve been worn and torn. And that’s not a bad thing. It’s a gorgeous thing. It’s life.

Of course, some of the cracks are painful and need mending. And that’s a daily process. It’s making good decision after good decision. Watching them pile up until they become something worth having. Looking after our minds is a process rather than an event. It takes time and dedication. Scars heal slowly, and these painful cracks are simply scars on the mend.

Up until now, we’ve been led to believe that we have to do this mending alone. But we don’t. We all need people and people need us. It’s the people that surround us who fill in our cracked parts with gold. And for that to happen we have to let them in. Let them understand the pain so that they can help us grow from it.

Let the light pour in. The people around you are the golden light you need. And we fill our cracks with gold around here.