The Attachment Theory by Jacopo Papucci

"My friend killed himself on the 8th of January.

I wondered why he chose that day.

Maybe it was because the holidays were over.

Maybe it was the cold. The way the sky hung heavy and lifeless.

Maybe it was nothing to do with the day at all."

The Attachment Theory

Big or small, moments matter.

They can describe emotional sunrises, they can usher in  the darkest of times. 

They can arise from something as seemingly trivial as a misplaced word or as hugely profound as the tale related above.

The Attachment Theory is about understanding the repercussions of pivotal moments.

By examining both his own past whilst also glimpsing beneath the veneer of family life Jacopo Papucci questions the paths a life may take and maybe tries to shine a little light into the twists and turns of his personal evolution.

Guilt, loneliness, a life spent trying to make sense of shifting realities. 

Like climbing the  Escher stairs, twists and turns, the hope and promise of a moment of epiphany, only to find yourself back where you started.

It seems some questions are not meant to be answered.

Mistakes and blame,

the projector and the screen. 

So much needlessly taken upon the self.

Misguided guilt and the unnecessary quest for forgiveness that can ultimately only be granted by the one seeking it.

Maybe there is a question.

Is it best to spend a lifetime trying to paper over cracks that only we see? 

And in doing so clip our own wings, deny the possibility of an existence that whilst might not be perfect, is just full of honest mistakes and human error.

A normal life.

In spending time with The Attachment Theory, it became impossible not recall an incident from my own past.

It was my first job and I couldn’t have been more than eighteen years old at the time. One of my colleagues, a tall slender guy with a sharp dry sense of humour, whom I actually didn’t see very often (he was a specialist practitioner who moved from practice to practice as and when needed), had phoned to follow up on a patient.

With business done, we exchanged pleasantries and being a Friday, we both asked as to whether the other had any plans for the weekend.

I remember him being upbeat but pretty vague.

Then, just before we finished the call, ha said something that I thought sounded unusual at the time.

Simply,

“….and Rob, take care of yourself.”

“You too”, I replied although I know I thought it seemed a slightly strange way to end the call.

I returned to work on Monday to hear that he was gone.

I would have been one of the last people to speak to him.

Did it change my life? 

I don’t know, my life is my life and I have lived it by reacting to situations and people then unconsciously making the decisions that have steered the ship and plotted the chart.

But I have never forgotten that phone call and frequently wondered what it would take to push an outwardly happy, balanced and intelligent person to such depths.

Books like this may begin as the vessel for an artist to tell their own story, converse with their own demons but in doing so they also encourage us delve into our own pasts and possibly to try and exorcise some of our own ghosts.

And maybe to be more aware of those that might be struggling with their own rudderless ship.

Maybe books like this are about learning to know and to forgive ourselves.

Maybe they are about being a friend to those who need one.

The Attachment Theory is published by Skinnerboox