To New Endings.

To the moments of gratification; the moments of despair.
To the feeling of anxiousness; and safety.
To the intoxicating highs and painstakingly-low lows.
To the breakthroughs; to the dead ends.

A moment for the people that left us, and the ones that were taken.
A smile to everyone that you’ve yet to prove wrong,
and a big fucking thank you to everyone that’s still waiting in your corner.
A great end to a roller coaster year, is what we hope for.
We hope quite a lot, because we want. We hope because we need.
We dream.

A toast to the realists.

A toast to the dreamers that know where they want to be,
even if they’ve no idea how to get there.
To innocence, and naïvety. To ambition, and the inner child.

My four walls expanded beyond a hollow darkness this year,
and my most incredible highs were simply, the peaceful days.

Though the bottom of the bottle tastes bitter,
the idea of its ‘being’, allows for sweeter endings.
Sweeter surroundings, surreal moments of time standing still:
allowing us to… be.

Here’s to a new chapter, a new learning curve, a new opportunity.
A second chance, a revised outlook, a new ending, a clear beginning.
Here we are, exactly where we need to be.
Looking ahead into the future, when everything we want..
is right underneath our footsteps.

RKZ.

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CALM: Depression In The Brit-Asian Community

An extract of my article for UK Men’s Health charity, CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably). Taken from Issue 6 of CALMzine (October 2012).

“..In the last few months, my family noticed some changes in my behaviour. I was a lot quieter, I kept to myself and my conversation was muted. I couldn’t help what I was feeling, and couldn’t do much to stop it taking over. After slowly being reassured that talking was okay by a great friend at CALM, I began expressing myself more and it helped. It still does.

I have a very open-minded family, so talking to them about how I felt was an easy process once the proverbial ice was broken. However, this is not always the case with some Asian families. After a long discussion with my father regarding depression, he mentioned a few things that resonated with me. “We often underestimate the stronghold that depression can have on our minds.” Within the Asian demographic the concept of depression can sometimes elude people, usually because we do not know much about it – thus immediately dismiss it.

This habit is something we need to break. We need to understand how serious depression is, and how much it can affect someone’s life. Yet, more importantly, we need to know how to spot it in others.”

Read the full article in Issue 6 of CALMzine, by clicking here.