THE COLOUR OF MADNESS
A Blog About Living with Mental Illness
Cliff Notes
I went back here today:
As I pull into the empty dirt car park memories flood my mind, I push the park brake, take a deep breath and open the door.
Last time I was here it was cold, now it’s already 30 degrees and it’s only 9am, the suns heat penetrates into my head intermittently blocked by clouds passing rapidly due to the gusting wind. It’s bushfire weather.
I haven’t been back here since that day in 2015. I wasn’t actually planning on coming here today but I was heading in the general direction, got lost in my thoughts and just decided to keep driving.
The last few days have been pretty rough and I think I needed something from it, seeing this space again I mean, the release of an emotion trapped inside a memory perhaps? I don’t know what exactly, just some sort of closure.
A eastern bearded dragon suddenly darts across my path and into a rocky crevice that he seemed far too big to fit into, I decide that if I were to come across a brown snake, the “golden asp” right here, right now then it would be proof that there is a God afterall and he’s laughing his ass of at me.
I duck under the metal railing past the warning signs and onto the rocky outcrop that leads down to the waterfall, the water is really flowing today, we’ve had a lot more recent rain than last time I was here.
Other people come here too, for various reasons I imagine, excitement, dares, capturing better photographs and those of us contemplating our futures. A lone thong sits on a rock presumably washed down the stream in the last downpour and I wonder momentarily what happened to its partner – and its owner.
My gypsy skirt and sandals aren’t really designed for this kind of caper and I have to walk carefully so I don’t slip on the mossy rocks, breaking my leg would be very inconvenient right now, plus I’d have to explain my reason for being here and frankly, that’s just too complicated.
I have to work to avoid standing in the fast running water reach as I reach the edge, I peer over gingerly deciding against taking a photo, my hands are shaking now and I don’t want to drop my phone.
Images of leaping from the edge into the wind and flying over the valley invade my thoughts and fill my mind with a sense of peace. “You know you can be free now” whispers a familiar voice that nobody else hears. I absentmindedly feel for the bottle of pills in my pocket but there’s nothing there this time, just the blue fabric of my skirt flowing in the wind.
My heart aches and my throat tightens, I am heavily incased within the memory of all of those feelings from over two years ago now.
What has changed for me in that time? Absolutely everything, and yet still nothing at all.
I think of my friend and her purple coffin, I envy her freedom momentarily and then think of her four children about to have their third Christmas without their Mum. I think about how much their worlds have changed, the new memories they have to make without her in them.
We made the same choice, her and I, except for some reason I got to make new memories with my children, and she didn’t.
I feel like I live so much of my life now in a dream that it’s hard not to think sometimes that perhaps I died too, maybe she sees herself making memories with her children as I do, perhaps nobody else sees me?
Just maybe we both still exist on different planes now, in realities of our own making, can death really take away our sadness or is it an illusion that just creates more?
For all I know my tears may have drowned me after all, but still the world keeps turning. I am dying from birth and yet also immortal within my own reality, I guess we all are.
After a while of sitting on the edge lost in thought, I walk back across the rocks to the main track, duck under the railing and head up the path to the car.
I think I have found my peace from this place now.
6 Comments on “Cliff Notes”
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THE COLOUR OF MADNESS 
Great writing
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Wow – I second the great writing – how amazing it is – and these parts really dug deep (it all did) but especially:
“I think of my friend and her purple coffin, I envy her freedom momentarily and then think of her four children about to have their third Christmas without their Mum. I think about how much their worlds have changed, the new memories they have to make without her in them.”
“We made the same choice, her and I, except for some reason I got to make new memories with my children, and she didn’t.”
“For all I know my tears may have drowned me after all, but still the world keeps turning. I am dying from birth and yet also immortal within my own reality, I guess we all are.”
and of course “I think I have found my peace from this place now.”
Really powerful, magnificently written and heartwrenching, Katie. 💗
Much love,
Dy
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p.s. “Cliff Notes” as the title? Fucking brilliant!
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Ah yes, I have a love for bad puns…
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Pingback: A Down Under Review of My Book From “The Colour Of Madness” – Birth of a New Brain
I’m glad you’re still here. And I acknowledge how hard it is for you to be here some days.
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