Why was it so hard to write this colyoom?

Sitting in my car on the clifftop at Kilcummin Back Strand, I looked out at the sumptuous bay. The greenest of headlands deliver quintessential Ireland, as they fringe an empty beach sheltered by massive dunes.

I was about to walk this beloved beach, where my ashes will be scattered, and then watch the tide turn.

Call it meditation, mindfulness or mooky-mooky-moo.
I don’t care.

It’s what I do.
I’ve been watching tides turn for 35 years.

Find a rock or a piece of driftwood to sit on, breathe out and stare at a fixed point near the water’s edge.

A spiral of sandy wormcast.
A smooth black pebble.
The tip of a rock poking out above the ocean shallows.

Then watch that point until either it disappears, subsumed by the Atlantic Ocean, or is left high and dry as the waters recede.

Before I left the car my phone rang, and I’m told that my lovely mum’s care has cost the inheritance that might have bought me a house.

I’d never own a home, because my mum is still alive. Happy with that equation every day of the week.

18 months ago this was, after a 6 year tsunami of major life poop, including a divorce, two evictions and a rare bacterial infection that nearly killed me three times.

I’d lost all my savings, all my income, half a lung and my dog, alongside several lifetime friends, who chose my most vulnerable time to become angry with me.

Although the pain of those losses is indescribable, I give thanks that I still have many wonderful friends.

As the inimitable Dalooney put it:
“Jeeze Chazzer, I’ve never seen someone lose so many lifetime friends and have so many left!”

During those dark years I also discovered that my PRSI payments were a disaster, and when the time comes I’ll inherit just enough to exclude me from the means-tested pension.

Old age suddenly looked decidedly grim: no home, no income.

A couple of months after that clifftop call I had a terrible fallout with a close family member, which finished off whatever was left of my mental health.

I reached out to a close friend, unaware that they too were enduring mental health issues, and instead of comfort I was ridiculed in public.

Reach out, they say.
Let me tell you, reaching out is not always successful.

There then followed a hellish weekend I will never forget, chewing valium dawn 'til dawn, asking myself what is the point?

That’s when I discovered suicidal thoughts don't come with a fanfare.

No melodrama.
Not a scream in sight. Merely a deep sigh and fuck me, is it really worth it?
Life is such hard work.
Just too much hassle.

I’m blessed by the love of many, but nobody relies on me, so what difference would it make?

Then I thought of my beautiful friend who walked into the sea just the year before, and the pain I feel for her loss; that devastating grief of wishing I’d done more.

No. I wouldn’t put others through that.

Well, if I wasn't going to die, I had to sort my life out. After working all my life, I never imagined it ending homeless and penniless.

Loyal colyoomistas, be aware: none of us are far from that oblivion.

I thought about the guy who lived by the river. The weather forecast said that there was going to be a massive flood, but he prayed to God and felt safe.

Then a woman from the village come to tell him they were all evacuating, but our guy just smiled and said he trusted God to help him out.

When the rains came and the river flooded, a man came in a boat, but our guy just waved him past and prayed.

Then the flood came, so our guy was on the roof of his house when the helicopter arrived.

“No thanks, I’m not leaving. I trust in God.”

They flew off. Our guy drowned, and as soon as he arrived in Heaven he had a right go at God for abandoning him in his hour of need.

God shrugged and said:

“Oy! What more could I do? I sent you a weather forecast, and I sent a woman from the village. I sent a man in a boat, and I sent a team in a helicopter. I can’t help you if you refuse to help yourself.”

 

I can be a righteous pit-bull when I want to be. Like a dog with the scent of hare, I chased it.

I secured the signature of my lung consultant on my medical needs housing application form. He asserted that the old stables where I was holed up were mouldy and damp; lethal to a man with chronic lung conditions.

Then a local councillor agreed to be my advocate with Mayo County Council, and I enlisted another friend who has local political clout.

They both proved a massive help.

Six months ago I got the home, for which I gave thanks two colyooms ago, so take a look: click here to read it 

Around the same time a friend told me about a scheme that allowed me to pay retrospective contributions for a UK pension. I filled out the forms but doubted success, sure that my young hitching life was too peripatetic to qualify for any pension.

Fear is a powerful fuel, while the love of others offered me a whole heap of help.

I love being wrong. Like a rescue dog, I’m now in my forever home, and as of last week, after a rare miracle of bureaucratic efficiency, there’s the distinct possibility that I’ll qualify for an almost full UK pension.

I called the friend who encouraged me to apply for the scheme, and told him I will be forever grateful.

The vast majority of my life I have enjoyed swimming with the tide. From 2016 to 2024 that tide turned against me, and it was brutal.

Confession: I’ve been uncharacteristically nervous about hitting the right tone in this piece. Despite my fervent love for the passion of the First Draft with Capital Letters, there are rare colyooms such as this that leave your scribbler unable to whack it all down, as I usually do.

The first draft is the soul of writing, all subsequent efforts being editing, and it is my duty to preserve the passion and power of that first draft as I improve my work.

However this piece has been the opposite of a first draft. My emotions are still so raw that I managed only a series of short jabs to the keyboard, over weeks, as I came to terms with the profundity of safety.

This is not me telling you what you should do.
This is not me telling you to look at what a mighty man I am.
This is neither practical advice nor philosophical guidance.

This is simply the story of a process.
It’s what happened to me.
You might like to know.

15 months ago I had neither a home nor a pension.
Life was not worth living.
Now I’m safe.
My tide turned.



©Charlie Adley
28.07.2025