Tangled Up In Blue
How to fire yourself back together
I say this not fishing for sympathy, I’m so grateful 2025 is nearly over. It was the hardest year of my life. I lost someone closest to me in January, and the rest of the year felt like a conveyor belt of deadlines and sadness.
The moment I knew things were dire was when my Spotify Wrapped arrived. If that many tracks from Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks are in your top songs, something is up.
I wondered if this was appropriate for my environment-themed Substack, a sort of “what to do when it feels like the arse is falling out of life” guide, and after much toing and froing I thought yes, the searing vulnerability is worth it, as I would’ve appreciated reading something like this at any point this year.
There were long stretches where I wasn’t sure there was any light at all. Usually, I’m a fairly happy and optimistic person. I’m easy to please: I like being outside, I like reading and I like socialising. I find it easy to love. I walk the fields to recalibrate, and always feel better when I come back. In fairness, what more do you need?
I hold childhood very close to me, as most people do. My memories are vivid, sometimes painfully so, and the nostalgia can feel almost sickly. So losing someone who formed such a crucial part of all my happiest childhood memories felt almost unbearable, like the passing of time was confronting me, shouting that nothing would ever be the same.
But time can be comforting, too, and George Harrison kept reminding me that all things must pass. I wondered if my personality was simply ill-equipped for adversity, that I lacked the stoicism of the heroines I grew up admiring.
If I were Jane Eyre, I probably would’ve stayed with Rochester because the fear of the unknown would have paralysed me. And if I did somehow leave, only to be propositioned by the bold St John, I likely would’ve gone with him to the West Indies for the craic to escape the moors.
If I were Jo from Little Women, there’s no universe in which I’d have forgiven Friedrich Bhaer for criticising my cowboy stories; I’d probably have lost my temper so spectacularly he’d never forgive me.
If I were Lara from Doctor Zhivago, there’s no way I would’ve missed shooting Komarovsky fatally. I don’t know how she did, for me it’s the biggest plot hole of the whole story. How did she only hit his hand?
I feel my life story wouldn’t be a great work of literature, more a testament to my lack of resolve and courage. My temper too hot, my sentimentalism too high, my ability to walk away almost non-existent.
When times get hard, I think of one of my favourite lines from Macbeth, which is Malcolm urging a devastated Macduff: “Blunt not the heart; enrage it.” To me, it means using your anguish to propel your motivation.
But this year my sadness didn’t feel like fuel. It felt like a brick lodged in my chest. In April, a particularly rough month, someone jokingly said, “you look like you’re going to the gallows,” and I burst into tears, which was not the reaction they expected. A public service announcement: if someone looks sad, offer a joke or a biscuit instead of commenting on their inadvertently tragic facial expression.
Thankfully, my friends intervened like the angels they are. I won’t write individual tributes here as I’m saving those for when I run out of blog ideas, but maybe one day I’ll make a collectible trading-card series featuring their special powers: “Joke Making,” “Sends Thoughtful WhatsApps Mere Seconds Before You Need Them,” and “Excellent Taste.”
I’m also blessed their healing advice that ranges from “start yoga” and “block him” to “become a nun,” “use your underwater safety training to work on an oil rig,” “get a buzzcut,” and “move countries to study medicine.” I’ve really enjoyed asking for their guidance, and ignoring most of it.
I grew impatient and slightly freaked out by my own sadness. Fair enough, I listen to enough melancholic music to make Father Kevin from Father Ted relapse. One day I woke up and put on Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers and even I thought, “Is this wise? Can I listen to Leonard Cohen before 11am and expect happiness?”
I temporarily banned Elliott Smith, The Smiths, Joy Division and a few others until times looked less bleak (no disrespect to any of them). I swapped them for Wham! ABBA, Sabrina Carpenter etc. and, honestly, it helped. Thanks, George Michael.
I did allow Bob Dylan to slip through, because he does hold a lot of rage that feels a bit productive. At no point of listening to Dylan do you think he’s surrendered, or there isn’t anything to fight for. Also, Cat Stevens, because he’s the happy man’s George Harrison.
I’ve always believed humour and messing is the best approach to life. But there’s been times this year things felt too heavy to even take the piss.
To pull myself out of the wallowing, I asked: What do I love? What could give me structure so I don’t collapse like a bookshelf I assembled myself?
At first, I turned to books and my reading list, but it went slightly wrong. Even Russian literature let me down, for the first time in my life. I liked The Story of a Nobody by Anton Chekhov, but all the women were weepy, one-dimensional and melancholic. It felt strange, even uncomfortable, to read from the perspective of a male protagonist who had so little regard for women’s feelings.
So I turned to another old reliable, John Steinbeck, and finally read East of Eden. I loved it, especially because it’s an epic, the kind of book with a timeline so vast and airy it reminds you how long life really is. Steinbeck heals.
But even reading became too heartbreaking; the poetry I loved stung more than it sang. What can a girl do?
The answer was art.
I’ve always loved drawing, but rarely give myself time to actually sit and make things. So I signed up for a ceramics class, and later added mosaics, because why not try both?
Ceramics is both hands-on and humbling. You absolutely cannot rush clay. My first pinch pots were so lopsided they looked like they were trying to escape themselves. You could see my fingerprints declaring, “She has no patience.” But they were fired anyway, and weeks later I painted one with a Swedish folk-art inspired pattern. It now holds my earrings, when I remember to take them off.
I kept thinking about throughout the year how adorable it is that humans decorate their homes with pictures of nature, birds, cats, trees, whatever. Somehow, I started doing the same myself, probably because it genuinely cheers me up. And then I wondered: do blackbirds have pictures of us in their nests?
I discovered my love of sgraffito: carving into slightly dried underglaze. The process is smooth and rhythmic, the tool peels away the clay like butter. And every time I sat down to design something, I drew birds. Birds appear in the garden every winter: tiny colourful creatures that sing even in the cold. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere.
People say grief isn’t linear. I nodded along like I understood, then immediately judged myself for not healing in a nice upward line on a graph. Some days I worried my brain was stuck in gear because I didn’t think I was adjusting to reality quick enough. I feel like my brain was a burst pipe, leaving out a flood of sadness and panic every now and then. Now I try to let each wave roll over me and pass over.
I have to remind myself there’s nothing wrong with being sad. We’re so obsessed with appearing competent that we forget most of us are held together by nothing but sheer willpower. I spent parts of this year feeling like a bombed-out building.
Art helped. Sitting there moulding clay while jazz blared on the radio, listening to people chat about everything and nothing, it felt like a blessing. Meeting friends afterwards, covered in clay dust like a Victorian chimney sweep, reminded me life keeps going.
It meant a lot to me to dedicate time each week to art, something I might not have done before, when college and deadlines felt like higher priorities. Now, it feels essential. It’s mindful and gives my brain a chance to come up for air.
A lot of great things happened this year. I made a lot of friends, and many of my friendships grew stronger. I learned that I can, eventually, stand up for myself when I need to. I wrote a thesis I’m proud of and became part of a PhD project I love. I’m living in a house share with great friends and the energy of the house means we all have vivid dreams and the wooden panelling and furniture makes it feel like we are on a David Lynch set.
Even though many days can feel mundane, like typing for four hours straight or sitting alone in the postgrad building eating a brown-bread sandwich while listening to the two Johnnies, most days are redeemed by laughter with friends, enjoying nature and writing.
I think the point of this post is to say that I did find light, after a few months of bleak thinking.
One of my oldest and closest friends Seanie asked me the other day if I believed in God, and I told him about a time in May when I wasn’t sure about anything, and I was standing up the field feeling listless. My terrier put his little paw on my welly, looking up at me with these big loving eyes, and I thought to myself, what could be more meaningful than caring?
One of the most significant aspects of the last few months is I started writing this Substack. It’s been strange to be at the face of something- I was more comfortable behind the camera or writing on behalf of other people, but this has been a major release and motivator for me.
I’m really grateful for every reader, as it’s been a lovely individual project and has spurred me to write more about the things that matter to me- even if that does stray from the environment every now and then.
People keep telling me everything happens for a reason, but I’m still unconvinced. There’s times I think the world is beyond cruel, to a stage where I wonder what is the point. Aspects of the news are devastating. I also wonder what part I can even play in the world, or if there is any meaning to it at all.
Maybe literature needs more hyper-sensitive reactionary heroines so I feel less lost. Maybe the world needs more wonky ceramics. There could even be enough stoic people in the world to let a few of us wear our hearts on our sleeves.
I’m sure every reader has been through their own form of grief and heartbreak, and maybe it’s not the case that the whole world took it handier than me. Maybe time grants the healing perspective that things can get easier. As the year rolls to a close, I can safely say things have gotten a much, much better and I’m excited for 2026.
I hope the new year brings more adventures, more friendships and progression in writing. I feel a sense of calm, and now I genuinely feel grateful, because lately I’ve been feeling the happiest and most myself I ever have.
Night-class enrolments are open now, by the way. Consider this your sign. Go make something. Stick tiles to a board and glue your fingers together in the process. Make a bowl that absolutely can’t be trusted to hold liquids. Let art heal you. Life gets better, sometimes frustratingly slowly, but it does.
A beautiful piece Aislínn!