Michael Gresham - senior mental health nurse, climber

The AofA Q&A

How old are you?

62

Where do you live?

Just outside Ruthin in North Wales.

What do you do?

Unemployed, but my trade is mental health nursing and psychotherapy.

Tell us what it's like to be your age?

It worries me because my physical health and condition tells me I'm running out of time to do so many of the things that I want to.

What do you have now that you didn’t have at 25?

I have developed some wisdoms about life and people which seem to be standing up to tests.

What about sex?

I love sex, but it's not the very primary driver that it used to be for me. There was a time, for too long a part of my life when I believed that sex was all about my worthiness. The residue of that still makes its way into my unconscious occasionally. However, it's still a very enjoyable part of my life. In many ways it’s a bit of a puzzling concept for me. Some days, it feels an utterly primal necessity and some days, it doesn’t even occur to me. I love spontaneity, adventure and urgency in sex.

And relationships?

I am happier in my partner relationship than I have ever been, with anyone. I feel truly seen, loved and respected and we have a reciprocated adoration for each other.

I have lost many close friends in the past 10 years, including two of my dearest and closest friends, Ralph and Hilary. Their deaths had and will continue to have a profound effect on me.

I have also lost old friends through misunderstandings and my own errant behaviour in the past. But I maintain that true friendships should rise above that. I am a very forgiving man. But also a very discerning one and I choose intimate friends very cautiously and over time. I think life is too short to tread on eggshells around people. So I have very few emotionally intimate friendships.

My relationships with my daughters were, I feel, sadly damaged when I split up from their mother when they were aged 9 and 12. I've tried really hard to do the right thing by them ever since, but I am never sure if that damage will be undone. That said, I do feel a mutual love between us and we do have a lot of laughs. I love them both more than life itself.

How free do you feel?

I don’t feel truly free. I'd love to say otherwise but I am tied by society, responsibilities, limited money and physical health. I feel angry that I am kept from feeling truly free by government rules and laws, by tax and council planning. Freedom in a true sense, is a very rare thing.

What are you proud of?

I'm proud of my two girls who are intelligent, moral and kind. I'm proud of my partner for similar reasons. And I suppose I'm proud of myself for that too. I'm also quite impressed with how precocious my grandchildren are. I also like that I am emotionally intelligent and that I have great intuition around people and am rarely wrong in my appraisal of them, without being quick to judge. On the other hand, interestingly for me, I also have great shame and guilt to counter that.

What keeps you inspired?

People who fight for fairness and justice, even when they are threatened by their willingness to stand on principal.

When are you happiest?

I'm happiest when I'm climbing well on a warm sunny day. Or watching heavy seas crash into the coast. Or damming rivers or making dribbled sand sandcastles on the beach.

Or when I'm outdoors enjoying the countryside and sharing that joy with someone.

Finding a new tune that just commands me to dance.

Travelling also makes me very happy, through different lands, food, cultures and people.

Sharing a universal humanity and connecting that way. Knowing essentially, that my smile is the same gesture as theirs.

And singing my head off whilst driving. I love driving. And I love laughing too.

And where does your creativity go?

My creativity goes into making music, writing and creating craft woodwork. I have a lot of what I think are unique and interesting ideas in that sense.

What’s your philosophy of living?

Life, it’s too short. But it's hard on balance. It shouldn't be so hard when it's so short and I detest that it is. But I do love life, especially now I'm sharing it with someone amazing.

And death?

Death and dying - for quite a few years, there were times when I would have been happy for it to take me, because life was just too hard. It's an interesting concept for me, having been brought up and indoctrinated with Catholicism but subsequently striving for atheism. Because logically, death just means the end of a person. The idea that our life energy goes somewhere, or becomes something else, is attractive as it is illogical, or even ludicrous to me. Now I have no wish to die. I want to maximise life and time with my partner, close friends and family.

Are you still dreaming?

I dream most every sleep and I love dreaming. I love the surreal illogic of dreams and the way the mind attempts to unravel so much information by telling it as a story. I stopped dreaming for several years when I was prescribed SSRI antidepressants. That was such a hollow time of my life.

If you meant dreaming in terms of hopes and aspirations, I dream of good health, so I can travel with the wonderful woman who I finally found so late in life.

And love?

Such an abstract concept. People have for the span of humanity, written about what their interpretation of love is so much and yet still, there is no true universal and combined understanding. Its true shape is intangible, just out of reach and fascinating. Describing love is, to me like describing blue. The blue I see may not be the blue you see. And it's not a single thing for me. It's a difficult and delightful evolving phenomenon. It's not always pleasant. From a balance perspective, it can be like a good blue cheese, that sails the cusp of delight and distaste. It is of pain and pleasure and without the risk of the former, it is nothing. But when it stays on the right side of that cusp, there is nothing so painfully, exquisitely sweet, that when it seeps into you with its potentially lethal toxins, it will have your heart weeping with pleasurable joy.

What was a recent outrageous action of yours?

Outrageous action? I don't really know. Maybe a nifty little evening of deep house Dj-ing and dancing, whilst sharing some MDMA with close people about a month ago.