Looking into the strange wardrobe

So, this is how it ends: today is the final episode of 10 Days of Breathing. It has been amazing to hear how people have benefited from the challenge. You may have even listened to an episode or two yourself?

That is why I feel that now is a good time to tell you how we (you and I) ended up here (reading / writing this blog post). It's a tale of life, death, snow and wardrobes and it begins in a maternity hospital on Cork Street.

I had just witnessed something astonishing, shocking, primal and violent. My first child had arrived 10 weeks early. He was barely formed. The doctors had rushed him to surgery in the intensive care unit. Josie (his mother and my wife) was barely conscious in the recovery room. It had been a crushing, and traumatic, night.

I was standing there in the waiting room of the intensive care unit, washing my hands. I had no idea how I felt. All I had was questions. Was it too early for him to survive? He looked so small and frail. Had I just witnessed his beginning or the end? Life? Or death?

Eventually, I made my way back to our empty house and fell into an uneasy sleep. The next morning I woke up and attempted to get dressed. I opened up the wardrobe. It felt like I was looking at a stranger's clothes. But, they were my clothes. I just felt so different. Every part of me felt different. It was like I was looking at someone else's clothes. It was like they no longer fitted me in any way.

I started a search that morning for something new. I started a search for a more open version of myself. I started a search for new clothes.

It eventually lead me up a snowy mountain, climbing in shorts with Wim Hof.

That opened me up to everything that is possible. That changed me forever. I never took the shorts off.

I had found my new clothes. I had found something more.

That lead me to you, dear reader and this email. Wherever you are now, reading this, I hope you find whatever it is you are looking for. Shorts or not!