Me In Time: The Space Between Us

There is one argument that my wife, Claire Berkley-Walker and I, will probably still be having when we are both ninety.

Who came up with the name Me In Time.

I maintain that it was me. I can remember drawing a clock because I thought it was about time. In my mind, this is fairly compelling evidence.

Claire maintains that she came up with it after a glass of red wine, because she is convinced she becomes more creative after a glass of red wine.

The truth is, neither of us can prove it.

And perhaps the funny thing is that when we chose the name, neither of us fully understood what it meant.

We thought we were naming a business we wanted to build.

What we didn't realise was that we were naming a journey that both of us were already on.

For a long time, I believed that being connected meant moving in the same direction.

Having the same interests.

The same hobbies.

The same way of seeing the world.

But the older I get, the more I realise that perhaps real connection is something else.

It is not becoming the same person.

It is allowing someone to continue becoming themselves while staying interested in who they are becoming.

Claire has always been much better at trying things.

There is the judo outfit to prove it.

There is the saxophone to prove it.

There are countless moments of her stepping into something new, simply to ask:

"Is this me?"

Sometimes the answer has been yes.

Sometimes the answer has been a very expensive item sitting in a cupboard.

My approach has often been slightly different.

I can have an idea and immediately begin thinking about what it could become.

Occasionally this works well.

Occasionally it leads to me planning a three-day mental health festival with my favourite band as the headline act, a venue, a running order and a complete vision.

The only slight issue was that neither the band nor the venue had actually agreed to take part.

A minor administrative detail.

We have always travelled differently.

Claire explores through experience.

I explore through ideas.

She tests things in the real world.

I sit with a cup of tea and wonder what they mean.

Claire will good-naturedly listen to me explaining why Brian Clough's achievement with Nottingham Forest will never be repeated, or why Freud's idea of free association might be even more relevant today when so much of what we consume is created, filtered and carefully edited.

Although I should probably stop there.

This is not the time or the place for that particular rabbit hole.

Equally, I can be just as interested in Claire talking about the importance of being in nature, creativity, slowing down, reconnecting with the past, and rediscovering parts of ourselves that have been waiting patiently for attention.

On the surface, those things might look completely different.

One person talking about football, psychoanalysis and the human condition.

The other talking about nature, creativity, identity and self-discovery.

But if you stand far enough back, perhaps they are both asking exactly the same question.

Who are we?

Who were we?

And who might we still become?

Perhaps that was always the point of Me In Time.

Not that we would become the same people.

Not that we would arrive at some finished version of ourselves.

But that we would continue becoming, in our own ways, at our own pace.

And perhaps that is why it was never called Us In Time.

Because every person has their own journey.

Their own questions.

Their own way of making sense of the world.

The privilege is not finding somebody who walks exactly the same path.

It is finding somebody whose path runs alongside yours for long enough that, one day, you look back and realise you have both become people you never expected to be.

Perhaps that is what we have both been learning all along: that every person has their own journey. Their own way of seeing the world. And every now and then, it is worth stopping to look at the view from the other side.