Pre-New Years Eve, I always think back to 2012. 31st December 2012. I finished work at 4pm, relieved to get through another anxious Christmas period unscathed and looking forward to the party in the evening. I even bought a new cricket bat as I was in a good mood. I still have it to this day.
Except things that evening went so very, very wrong. I went to my party and I remember very clearly a drunk woman telling me I should be doing so much more with my life. For a man who was questioning his use in the world; who felt at loggerheads with it and thus, on the road to feeling empty, this was confirmation. I had received validation of my own thoughts. It's one thing to question your own place in the world, but when it comes from someone else, it means so much more to me.
My mind collapsed. While everyone else seemed beyond happy to bring in a new year with new opportunities, for me it signalled the start of another year of trouble. I had battled these negative thoughts for years and on December 31st 2012, I snapped. The events are a blur. I was walking home for some reason, telling myself not to walk in front of every car that passed. I reached an ally way, just to get myself away from the road. I must have rang an ambulance, or someone else did, because I ended up in A&E, but the new year's rush did little to calm me, so I ran.
I can't really explain any logic behind any of this, or any of my actions. All I could concentrate on was escaping my thoughts, by any means possible. I seem to remember passing by my favourite pub in some last gasp effort to find someone, but it was closed. It must have been very late.
With some sort of made up confirmation that no one cared about me, I climbed the multi-storey car park. I can't tell you if I was ever close to jumping, for those times are blurry in my memories; as if my mind is trying to stop me revisiting them. I can't tell you how long I was up there for before a man in a hi-visibility jacket walked up the final ramp to the open-air top floor of the car park. One of the things I remember very clearly was warning him not to get any closer as he walked towards me. As if I was going to punch him or something. I can't even imagine what was going through his mind.
In the end, he talked me down.
Naturally, I've thought about that day for a long time. I can't remember most of the events, especially on top of that freezing slab of concrete, but I have often wondered who that man was. Of course, he was a police officer and not a member of the public. I was thinking about it a lot more than usual this new year, before I decided that I wanted to find him.
24 hours or so after sending an aimless tweet to Bedfordshire Police, I have found my man. Thanks to the wonders of social media, I received a message from the policeman's wife this morning who told me he had alerted her husband as the story sounded familiar. Sure enough, it was him. I'm absolutely delighted I've found him and I can't wait to meet him next week, to thank him personally.
There's one thing I regret from all of this though. In the adrenaline rush of finding him, I agreed to Bedfordshire Police running some media coverage of our meeting. I didn't really think about it too much before agreeing to it, but now I really regret agreeing altogether. I don't want this to be a publicity stunt. While it is a good news story; someone finding the policeman who, in my opinion, saved my life, the maximum I want is a photo with the guy and a private conversation. While I admit, it may show that people can succeed despite being on the edge, I fear of what other people may think.
Overall though, it's been a bit of a rollercoaster couple of days. I'm delighted that I'll meet him, 4 years on from that day. I just hope our conversation remains private.
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