Who Are You?

I am the book I have just read, and all the films I have seen in dark movie theatres in Dublin’s city centre on grey November afternoons when I was supposed to be at lectures instead. Mona Lisa, Betty Blue, In the Name of the Rose, and My Beautiful Launderette to name but a few, each one, a masterpiece in its own right. Memories I will never forget. I am the melody of the music I’ve come to love: U2, Springsteen, An Emotional Fish and The Golden Horde, again too many to mention. They take me back to the places I was when I hear them for the first time. Sweet succulent melodies caught up in the days gone by. Suddenly I’m running back down Talbot Street from Golden Discs record shop to the hostel where I used to work, pushing through the front door, rushing up the stairs to Mercedes’s, my Catalan girlfriend’s room, and sliding The Joshua Tree tape into the slot and pressing play, the first time, the last time I will ever hear it for the first time. The opening beat of Where the Streets Have No Name floods my brain. I want to run, I want to hide, I want to break down the walls that hold me inside.  

I am the past; the present and the future yet to come. Sometimes I am nothing at all. I am now, then and everything in between. I am the first time you smiled at me, I am the first time we kissed and the first time we said goodbye forever. I am still a boy, sometimes a man, even if I still don’t know what any of that means. Gabriel Byrne is so right, we walk with ghosts. I am the moments that still make me laugh and cry. I carry them with me everywhere I go. I am the laughter and the joy and the silly jokes. It’s why I’m still here. It’s called hope. It triumphs over fear any day and always will. It doesn’t mean I’m not afraid, just that there’ll always be another chance, another day worth getting up for. Somedays I might want to give up, but there’s something that won’t allow me to give in. If heaven’s going to take me it’ll have to wait for now. I am everything that I remember and the things that I forget, left to swim below the surface searching for a way out of the undercurrent. I am always hungry for more. I’m always eager to understand why I’m here and what’s gone before. I want to hold your hand again and slip back into the dreams we’ve left behind. But most of all I’m just trying to do my best to be who I really am, even if it’s difficult in the world we live in today. But there’s one thing I’m certain of now, I’m doing my very best to be kind.

I am all the mistakes I’ve made, as well as the times I’ve got it right. I am all of the regret, guilt, shame, lies, and yes, the ecstasy, and the truth too. I am all the people and places I’ve gently laid down on dawn’s desert highway bleeding because they were too hard to hold onto. I am also the drifter caught in the sharpness of slipstream of what’s expected of all of us. I’ve stepped outside of my comfort zone more than once and felt the rage of the mainstream. I know what it’s like to feel different, to be different, to be misunderstood, to be cast adrift with only the eerie silence for company. I’ve been that ghost. I still am. I’ve walked on the other side of the road and looked over at the people going the other way. Separate. Alone. I am everywhere I’ve been: London, Riyadh, Carlow, New York and Berlin, but most of all I am Dublin through and through. Hill 16 is where I go to reconnect with my soul. The spirit coursing through me as the crowd roars: C’mon You Boys in Blue, C’mon You Boys in Blue…  

I am a father, writer, counsellor, teacher, comedian (some might question that), and I like to think, a poet. I am a friend or an enemy depending on your view, it’s up to you. Like my father I’ve learned not to suffer fools gladly, but I’m better at it than I once was. I’m a lot more forgiving now. Most fools are harmless until they start telling you what to do. I’d like to think that what you get is what you see, but I also understand that it might not always be so. After all, there are times when we have to protect ourselves and wear a mask to hide what’s inside. I like to listen out for the quietest person in the room because often they’re the ones with the most interesting and important things to say. That’s why they often say nothing. I can be rock and roll, cheeky when I want to be, but I have to be comfortable. I am the quiet one in the wrong company. I have to trust your energy if I’m to open up. I’ve also learned to walk away. I am far from perfect, who among us is? But like so many of us, I’m trying to do my best, even if I already know that it’s never going to be enough.

I am the people who mean so much to me. The happiness, the regret, and the pain I carry that they have sought in me. I am life and death. We all are Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. I am the beginning and the end in equal measure and what lies in between. I am the ground beneath my feet and the sky above. I am those little moments; that bring contentment: a cup of tea, an early evening stroll, or an easy conversation with myself and no one else. I am never black and white, happier instead to inhabit the grey areas where fusion and possibility lie. I am love and hate. After all, there is no cure for history. Much more love now I hope. I am what I have been and the person I still strive to be. I’m changing every day. I always will be.

I am my mother and father’s wisdom. I am everything and nothing at all. I am the silence of the noise rattling inside my head. I often live in empty spaces where some fear to tread. I am the same in some people’s eyes. No different to the boy I used to be. I am the man they will always want me to be. It’s why people go away, to be themselves again. Often to find the anchor they need to experience the wildness of the waves. I am the uncertainty that comes with stability. I can be bored and excited at the same time. I am the person sitting in Simon’s Coffee Shop on George’s Street watching the world go by. I am the strangers I like to be around. I am the shopper in Supervalu wondering why a couple arguing over which toothpaste to buy don’t just buy both. I am the restless part of me.

I am the wonder inside. I am light and dark depending on the day. I am the Monday morning blues and an easy Saturday afternoon. I am so misunderstood that I struggle even to understand myself. I am the people who inspire me and annoy me, they walk hand-in-hand. I go towards them now because of the wonders I might find. I am proud, separate and more often than not I like to walk in the other direction to the crowd. It’s often quieter on the opposite side of the road. There, I can hear myself think. I am strong, but no longer afraid of being fragile too. I am the people who mean so much to me still but might not know it. The ones I will always trust to be themselves and tell me the truth and what’s what.

But most of all.

I am me.