Nothing really matters... and that's great!

Lottie's here with a little mid-year reminder that we shouldn't take this all too seriously...

Today marks exactly two years since my mum died. This newsletter isn’t about her really, though she is a source inspiration for almost every decision I make (I vowed to live by WWHD, “what would Helen do?” after she died). Instead, this newsletter is about how the ground-shaking, soul-wrenching experience of losing my mum, who was my best friend and go-to plus-one for press trips, has helped me become more successful and happier in my career. I know that might sound odd, so let me tell you a story…

It was Twixmas 2021 — that weird time between Christmas and New Year — when my mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer. This was not her first rodeo on the chemo-radiotherapy trail, but from the outset we knew it would probably be her last, and not in a good way.

In the months that followed, she started to get really sick. In between walking my dog and writing and editing my first book, I walked her dog, drove her to hospital appointments, picked up prescriptions and liaised with nurses on the phone. I stepped into her shoes within my brother’s plumbing and heating business to help fill the gaps where she couldn’t work any longer, and began to lose myself a little amid the admin of her illness.

I could feel my career slipping away from me daily as I had to decline certain press trips and assignments. I knew I had to give it up, but I was scared: if I stop working now, will I lose my momentum? Will I ever be able to pick back up where I left off? Will my contacts dissolve into thin air? Will I lose my career entirely?

It was on a chilly February morning that a friend, whose dad was also dying from cancer, came to see me. We bonded over mediocre lattes and talked about the weird world of someone whose parent is dying well before their time. We talked about the anger we felt towards their stoicism, and the trauma we were afraid would consume us in the coming months. I told him how I felt like I was losing my personality, being torn between my work and caring for my mother. I told him I didn’t want to let go of either, but something had to give.

You will never regret the time you spent caring for your mum, but you will regret the time that you didn’t.

It was this simple sentence that changed everything for me. I will be forever thankful to Jon for this sage advice, which he dispensed like a wise old man at the age of 28 years old. That afternoon, I went home from our coffee date and put my work life on hold. I cancelled commissions, I wrapped up projects as fast as possible, and I sub-contracted the things I could. I cleared out most of my personal belongings from my home and put it on Airbnb, and then me and the dog moved in with my mum. I then officially became a full-time carer.

Instead of travelling around the world, I travelled to the hospital on a near-weekly basis. I didn’t write articles or emails; I wrote medication regimes and symptoms to relay to the doctor at our next appointment. I administered seven different types of drugs nine times a day, and I fed her through the tube they poked into her stomach so she could remain nourished and hydrated.

I resisted tears at her bedside when she was struggling. I didn’t blink an eye when incontinence set in and I had to change the bedding twice daily. I took respite in the evenings at friends’ houses with copious amounts of wine, and on dog walks in private-hire fields where I could scream into the open air to hear the sound of my pain dissolve into the wind as swiftly as it came out of my throat.

Then she died. She walked out of the house and into an ambulance on a Thursday morning, and she never came back. Cancer was killing her, but pneumonia had the last word. She was gone. And so was all the admin and responsibility I had gained over the previous six months. I was “free”, some might say. I could “get on with my life”.

There’s an odd period between the day somebody dies and the day you commemorate their life through a funeral. It was around four weeks for us, and once the funeral — which was an absolute cry-fest at the crematorium and then a total banger of an after party at the wake — was over, I made myself go back to work. I needed something to do, and so I returned to some copywriting.

The thing is, it felt pointless. Everything felt pointless. My grief counsellor said that was normal. Most people have this sense of being adrift after a death of someone close. Most people feel like everything is fruitless, purposeless, like everything is a waste of time. It felt to me like nothing really matters. Everything is futile.

For a while, this feeling plagued me. It stunted my creativity and stifled my productivity. I was listless. I had done the most important job I’ll ever do in my life — I made the woman who created me feel as comfortable and safe as possible in her final months alive — so why should I bother writing this hotel copy? What’s the point in this stupid listicle? It’s all meaningless.

And I was right. None of this — the commissions, the articles, the books, the tweets, the Instagram stories or the Tiktok videos — none of it matters. Nobody is going to die if I don’t do it. Nobody is going to miss me if I stop being a travel writer. The impact I make on the world with my writing is tiny, surface-level stuff. It is inconsequential. And that is beautiful.

Nothing could ever matter as much as caring for a loved one when they need you most, and so I was set free in a way. I didn’t want to be free from the admin and horror of caring for my mum — I would, selfishly, give anything to be back in those days again now just so I could see her, hug her and speak to her. But I did, perhaps unknowingly, want to be free from the pressure I had placed on myself at work. The pressure to succeed, to keep getting better, to keep earning more and getting bigger bylines and awards.

And I am. I am free from that now because I know that none of it really matters in the grand scheme of life and death. And in a strange turn of events, this realisation has probably helped my career — and wider happiness — to grow. Without the burden of ambition I am free to say no to whatever I like, or say yes without second-guessing myself. I have developed the ability to send a pitch and not care if I am answered with a yes or a no or not at all. I feel emboldened to take more risks — such as writing this newsletter — and I feel empowered by a confidence that can only stem from surviving the hardest time of your life.

I am not suggesting that none of your work matters. Perhaps you really are changing lives with your words. But if you’re not, if you’re like me and you’re just penning fun stories for meagre wage, then I hope you can use this cautionary tale to take a step back and realise that it’s OK if you didn’t get that job or commission. It’s fine if the editor wanted to tweak a few things or a significant chunk of your piece.

We are not doctors, or surgeons or physicists trying to change the world or save lives. We’re just travel writers and our job is quite nice most of the time, so we should enjoy it a bit more. After all, who knows how long we’ve got, right? My mum died at 58 years old. I hope I’ll get a bit longer, and that in the meantime she can keep guiding me through the power of “WWHD?”.

The answer to that, by the way, almost always involves a glass (or bottle) of wine. And so go forth, in her honour and in mine, and clock off early this fine Tuesday in July and go and pour yourself a drink. The deadlines can wait. Because now we know, it doesn’t really matter.