What Held Us, and Still Does

Looking back, I often wonder why certain memories linger while others fade. It's rarely the big events that stay with us. More often, it’s the quiet, unexpected moments, something small that slipped under the skin and settled there.

One of my earliest memories is from infant school. I had two T-shirts I loved, one with a panda, one with a tiger. They were printed with photographic images, which made them feel vivid and important in a way I couldn't explain. I remember a teacher, Mrs. Smith, noticing the tiger shirt and calling me “Tiger.” Maybe she sensed the nervous energy in me. Her simple gesture, a name, a smile, cut through the fog of anxiety. It’s still one of the few memories I have from that time, which says something about its weight.

School was never easy. I had friends, but mostly I was anxious, always scanning for threat, stuck in fight or flight, my mind scattered and restless. Teachers tried, some more than others. I now appreciate how hard it must’ve been for them, managing classrooms of 40 children, each carrying their own invisible weight. And yet, a few managed to connect, if only briefly. Those moments mattered more than they knew.

Outside of school, I found peace in fields and hedgerows, in forgotten railway lines reclaimed by nature. There was magic in those spaces, building camps, collecting newts, wandering through tall grass as the world quieted down. Out there, disconnection felt less like a flaw and more like a freedom. I could just be, without needing to fit.

Even then, I was watching people. Noticing who felt loved, who didn’t. Who seemed whole, who was struggling. I didn’t have the words for it at the time, but I felt the gaps, emotional spaces that kids try to fill however they can. I built narratives, tried to understand why some children were kind and others cruel. It was a patchwork understanding, but one stitched together by a genuine curiosity and a deep need to make sense of things.

Television became another window, a powerful one. It offered promises of lives that looked nothing like mine. Beautiful people with perfect stories, always resolved by the end of the episode. As a child, I believed those stories. I believed in the shiny ideals they sold. Only later did I see how those images distorted my perception, quietly planting seeds of inadequacy and longing for things that never truly existed.

And still, the feeling lingered: something isn't quite right. That same quiet awareness I carried as a child is still with me now. But I no longer see it as something broken. Instead, I’ve come to see disconnection itself as a kind of signal, one that points toward something vital, something waiting.

Maybe that’s what we’ve missed, in our rush to keep busy and stay distracted: that this feeling of disconnection isn’t a flaw, but a call. A whisper asking us to slow down, to pay attention, to remember what once felt real. The teacher who saw you. The field that held you. The moment you knew you were not alone, even if just for a breath.

We’re not meant to ignore those moments.

They’re the thread.

The way back.

What held us, and still does.