The time has finally come to make my religious confession

Double Vision with Charlie Adley

It’s time for a confession. Something happened to me, and I’m about to share it with you. If that sounds an unusually grandiose introduction, considering you’ve been suffering my blather in this noble rag for 20 odd(!) years, it’s because there’s a substantial part of me that can’t believe I’m really going to put this one into print.

Now I’m building up your expectations of the tale, when what is important is not the story itself, but my reaction to it.

Let’s go back to August 2001.I’m living in north Mayo, walking along a glorious sandy beach. The sky is cloudless, the breeze gentle and warm, and I’m the only human as far as I can see, hear or smell.

Stopping in my tracks I splay my arms out, lean back in exultation and roar “Thank You!”

In an instant, from deep inside and audibly all around me, a voice booms:“No! Thank YOU Charlie!”

Simultaneously, I experience a fast-forward slide show of all the pain and hurt I had felt and inflicted upon others during my life in California. I see four years of rage and depression fly by. I see hurt morphing into comfort in that house in the Claddagh. I see anger becoming love with the recent meeting of a lass, who later becomes my wife.

I see agitation blending with confusion, emerging as delight and enjoyment. At that moment I am loving my life, writing this colyoom and another in the Irish Examiner, selling features galore, finally living my dream.

A second or so later it’s over, and I stand there, alone on the beach. Staring at the ripples of water running around my feet, I laugh out loud, as torrents of thought flood my brain.

‘Woh!’ cascades into ‘Spooky!’ and then ‘Whoops! I’m a crazy man!’

Despite the wonder and awe I feel about what just happened, it somehow makes perfect sense. I understand. I had been grateful and given thanks, but was then reminded that I am merely a speck in the order of things.

My life’s path had caused pain and damage, yet now there was the chance of repair; of joy on all sides.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.