If you let them...

This is my favourite T-Shirt. 

Have you ever had a favourite thing you simply can’t let go of??

I have had this thing for over 30 years. 

It is ratty and torn and mankey…but I could never bring myself to throw it away. 

It reminds me of a better time.

I have a photo of me all those years ago, taken around the time I was at college, of me wearing this shirt.   

It was a family time in Adelaide. 

Dad was chasing some wild scheme or other, and we were…

I don’t know.  For a few days, dad was not as mad as usual.

It was like an oasis. 

It’s like the chemicals in his brain…

The madness lets up for a little while, and you can see things as being happy, peaceful, cheerful…even dare I say it ‘fun’? 

I know…because my brain does this from time to time.

It’s mostly all a horror show…& I get that…

& I do my work…trying to make sense of it all…

But every so often, my brain gives me a break. 

I have noticed…the more I write…the more I understand…

The more of these ‘breaks’ I get.

It’s like the writing…

I imagine I have been on one long bender.

I wake up one morning, hungover, with a huge pile of dirty overcoats on top of me, & I have to get them off me.

One by one. 

That is what the writing is.  Peeling off each filthy coat.

Sometimes I get a glimpse of what it will be like when they are all off. 

Yesterday, in my pile of dirty clothes on the floor, I saw a blast from the past; this old singlet, & it immediately brought back memories of a happy time. 

It’s funny; it’s almost as if…

I can see dad. 

He wasn’t always mad…it would not be sustainable to be mad all the time.  Every so often…there were glimpses of humanity.

It’s like…I can see what happened to him…

& I can see how it could happen to me…

& it is usually around the time I am about to give up on writing…

I see what happened to dad…when he gave it all up…

& I remember how important this all is. 

To keep going.

It’s like…

Being in the desert. 

Or in a jungle.

It is a long hard trek. 

Of course I want to give up, lay down and die.

Who wouldn’t. 

But I can’t…I have to keep going.  Like all my other fellow battlers.

I can’t be like dad.

But if I don’t have a vision of a viable alternative…

Peace and happiness and love…

Then I WILL turn out just ‘like him’.

That’s all my brain will hear…

‘like’…& ‘him’.

And that vision…

Is partly my singlet, and everything it represents.         

I could never figure out why I loved it so much…

Why I never threw it away…

& now I know. 

It is a reminder…not of the bad…

But of the good. 

How good things can be.

If you let them.