Will, Finsbury Park

LET IT BREATHE, THEN LET IT GO

Dear Will, well, I don’t know if I’d call myself wise or even particularly spiritual (although I can promise I’m working on both), but if you want to talk about guilt, strap yourself in, I’m your man.

My story is very different from yours (and so is my guilt), but I can see some similarities as well, namely that what you thought was strength actually turned out to be weakness, and that you’ve discovered forgiveness is a pretty tough gig from both sides of the fence. If I really did have all the answers, I’d be a much better man than I am now, Will (and possibly being endorsed by The Times instead of the Double), but I do know one thing to be true: all guilt does is feed itself by eating you up, one internal organ at a time.

As I lay in bed last night thinking about your letter (take heart you’re not the only one not sleeping much these days, mate), I was reminded of something my father said to me once. By the way, he was someone who lived his entire life as a good man, something I’m yet to achieve, so when he talks, I listen. Still.

Back when I was about seventeen, I had a part-time job in a rec centre. One evening I had an argument with the guy I was on shift with over whose turn it was to clean the loos – which was a shit of a job, pardon the pun. It was definitely my turn, but I barefacedly lied to him and he eventually caved, because I’m a stubborn bastard, always was. So I got to go home early for the second time that week and he stayed to do the loos and lock up. The next day when I got to work everyone was standing around looking shell-shocked, and I found out some thugs had broken in the previous night to rob the weights equipment. They didn’t know the guy was still in there cleaning the toilets, and when he confronted them they beat the hell out of him with a twenty-pound dumbbell. He was in hospital for two weeks and I had to leave the job because I felt so guilty knowing it should have been me. I ended up admitting everything to my father, and after I told him what had happened, he thought about it long and hard. Even though I knew I wasn’t going to get a bollocking, because I never heard Dad raise his voice in his life, I was definitely not looking forward to what he was going to say, because I knew how disappointed he’d be and who could blame him? But here’s what he said, and I’ll try to be as accurate as possible because he was a far better man with words than me.

He said, ‘Guilt will destroy you if you let it, son, so you’ve just got to face it down. Apologise, acknowledge it, let it breathe, then let it go.’ (He also said he was extremely glad I hadn’t ended up in hospital with the hell beaten out of me.) It’s strange that it’s taken your letter to make me remember that conversation with my father, but maybe it’s due to the fact I didn’t actually take his advice. I spent the next few months lying very low, scared I was going to run into my old workmate. I never did, but I also never got to tell him how sorry I was and I never got to let it go.