satisfaction.

So I must be honest, I am not as over the moon in my new job as I expected to be. Perhaps I am naïve to expect to feel so happy, but it’s a saving grace that Mike is there with me because otherwise it would be a bit lonely and I would have nobody to vent to who knows precisely what I’m going through, because he is going through the exact same stuff.  However, although he was a bit unsure after the first day, the job seems to have grown on him more than it has for me.  I am looking forward to going to work tomorrow, but mainly because it will alleviate the boredom of this weekend at home, and mean that my next weekend in London with Toby will approach that much more quickly. The difficult thing is that there is nothing specific I can put my finger on – all the staff are lovely, I finally met my tutees (although if they’re doing a reshuffle so that I am not unfairly laden with more students than any other tutor, some of them won’t be my tutees after all) and apart from a few cheeky ones (which you have to expect when they’re aged 16-19), they all seem pretty nice so far. Term starts tomorrow and I’ll be into the real job rather than preparation and laying the groundwork and multiple meetings which seem designed to confuse something which ends up being the common sense I had expected. I am looking forward to starting, but I don’t feel the enthusiasm I felt a month ago (yes, this is my 4th week!). I don’t really know why, but I feel like something’s missing lately and I can’t pinpoint what, so I’ll just keep going and hopefully I’ll slowly feel more satisfied. I know that I want to take my driving test (hopefully next month), then I can move out, so I am slowly accomplishing my goals but until I get a car I feel a bit like I am in limbo; depending on Mike to take me to and from work, I am scared when he moves house in a month’s time because then I’ll be getting the train / lifts from other members of staff again, and I don’t like that dependence on people I don’t know that well, even at the same time as their kindness touches me.

I also mentioned that I’ve been at home this weekend.  I don’t know why, but I feel and act 10 years younger than my 24 years around my parents and grandmother; not throwing teenage tantrums, but keeping an intense amount of privacy and being more feisty and snappy in response to their questions which from their mouths sound nosey; from anyone else, I’m aware that they would just be taking an interest in me and I would happily answer. I don’t know why I revert to this mentality, but I am supposed to be going out for dinner to a pub with my parents tonight; it’s their idea, but I really have an aversion to going and am undecided whether I’m going to attend. It’s more enjoyable for them and for me when it’s just the two of them; I don’t have to make an effort at conversation, they can enjoy some private time, I don’t have to spend a couple of hours quietly hating their choice of venue, I get to have the house to myself for a couple of hours. I know the mature thing would be just to suck it up and go along, but then if the original reason for the meal is to celebrate my new job, why does it feel as if I am accommodating them? I’d really rather just not go, not to mention we already had a meal for the same celebratory reason a month or so ago. Do I really need to do this again? And yet I am aware that I feel like a brat for not wanting to go, as if I can’t spend a couple of hours with my parents without feeling aggrieved.  On the one hand, I need to grow up; on the other hand, why should I still feel obliged to do these things if I am an adult, earn my own salary (finally! and that is a good feeling), make my own decisions and therefore should have choice over whether I want to do something or not? Am I right or wrong to feel guilty?

Talking of guilty, I am tempted to alleviate my boredom and muted despair by going to a café in Cabot Circus this afternoon – let’s face it, I have nothing better to do and I get severe cabin fever staying inside all day. Now, I know I don’t need to spend money, but as I got my first payment a week and a half ago and it was a lovely boost, I know that I only have another few weeks to manage with more than enough money to get me through. Yet I had a lovely coffee yesterday, and I wish that I could get out and about without having to spend money in the process. I am also tempted to buy a bottle of Gucci Guilty because the fragrance smells nice enough but the bottle will look KILLER on my perfume shelf (I am a Gucci fan). Check it:

Sexy non? I think so, and I can already see that if I go into town, my resistance will crumble and I will end up with a bottle. A bottle of fragrance that I don’t need (although I have been quite good and slowly clearing out my stocks), to make myself feel better for how long? I do love shopping, and retail therapy has always been something I’ve enjoyed – buying presents for others or for myself, I enjoy spending money and any excuse to do so is welcome in my book.  However, even though I most probably will possess this bottle within a few hours, I will also know that it is just an excuse. An expensive excuse to distract myself, feel happy for a while until it fades and I’m left in the same predicament. I miss my wonderful boyfriend Toby, and I am so glad to have a beautiful Thomas Sabo ring he put on my finger (no, not an engagement ring, rather a “just-because” present – just because! I got him an iPod touch which he has been sorely in need of) because even when I miss him, I can look at it and have a little part of him with me all the time.  I miss seeing my friends in Bristol, because I’m working during the week and in London most weekends that I never get to seem them much and I really miss them! I hope that I can keep my life moving and finally capture the independence I already feel grown for. Then I’ll hopefully be more satisfied, while I work out what the overall meaning of my life should be.

act your age.

The other night I was on the phone to Toby walking through Tesco when I was stopped in my tracks by the sight of a big cuddly Hello Kitty in a half-price toys bin. I checked the price (£10), fell in love with it, plucked it out of the bin and kept walking, all the while telling Toby what I had just done.  He chuckled at me, as people often do when confronted with my weakness for cute cuddly toys. However, all my friends know what I am like by now, and my family does too – they think it’s part cute, part bizarre, part they just shake their heads in despair.  The cashier at Tesco thought my mum was joking when, in response to what age the toy was aimed at, my mother gave me a glance and a grin.

In my bedroom at home, Hello Kitty joins my menagerie of Nemo, Ramón, Bing and Bong the white seals, Pikachu & a giant dog called Doug. I guess I always loved cuddling stuffed animals and teddy bears ever since I was a child, and they are soft and warm and comforting. They all come off the bed at night, except for in the winter when it’s cold and I want the weight of something on top of me to make me feel more cocooned and warm (hopefully Toby is my grown-up replacement! 😉 ).  They make me feel at once whimsical and cosy.

Unlike Taylor Lautner, who keeps me warm in a very different way:

After much deliberation and resisting buying the Eclipse poster in the cinema, I finally caved and bought the above poster yesterday in HMV, which is now framed on my wall as you can see. When I was with Toby (although it is in a slight ironic way, I do really enjoy the Twilight Saga!) queuing for Eclipse, I pointed out the poster and was tempted to buy it; the same happened when I was queuing for the same film with Karina, Davina and Deena. Both times I resisted, and Toby’s teasing reproach was that “get it if you want, if you have no problems with having pictures of teenage boys on your bedroom wall”.  Well, when he put it like that… I was briefly shamed into restraint, but as they say, resistance is futile.  Anyway, Lautner is 18 and therefore a legal adult, as well as a total hottie (far more than Robert Pattinson, at any rate).

Both of these purchases made me think that I’ve always had a certain kind of taste for both men and cuddly toys. I’ve not changed in that respect since I was young; I like big cute stuffed animals and I like sexy men; I doubt this will change from 13 to 30 to beyond. As a teenager, my appreciation of teddy bears was considered a cute throwback to childhood in the face of so many pressures of adolescence and incipient adulthood. And it’s natural to find others attractive as you become in touch with your sexuality: I always was attracted to people who were older than me when I was a teenager, and now it’s to people who are the same age as me.  Perhaps I’m an eternal late teen? Unlike Mariah Carey who claims she is “eternally 12”, perhaps I’m eternally 19. After all, Taylor may be 18 but he has a better body than most people in their 20s, and when sexualised as he is both above and in the Twilight Saga films, he comes off as early twenties rather than a teen. That’s my defence and I’m sticking to it, but while I physically age, my mentality and preferences will evolve and mature in some respects, but I guess that some of my tastes will remain constant.  This is just who I am, and I think that it’s very healthy to be in touch with your inner child and indulge that fun-loving, fresh side of your personality. 🙂

community.

When I am on my driving lessons, my driving instructor (who lives around the corner from me and has done for the whole of my lifetime and probably many years prior to that) often points out people who he knows, chats about the various people who have lived and continue to live in certain houses and streets, and talks about life in Kingswood in general.  Most of the time, I can only nod my assent because I have no idea whom or what he is talking about; I only know the names and faces of the people who live within 3 doors of our house and across the road from it.  On the odd occasion that I am walking around the local area, I could quite happily walk past people who live on my street without recognising them.  This street is not and has never been a community to me; my town is just a place I live, and although it’s adequate (I like the fact that unlike other, more wealthy areas of the city, it doesn’t have a ‘grey’ atmosphere and I can see the sky – I’m not a total urbanite then!), I don’t feel any sense of community with the other people who live there; in fact, I feel like more of an alien (and with my dress sense, I look like one too).  I must add that I will stick up for where I come from, despite its chavvy, slightly dangerous reputation; I did get slightly offended by a comment made by one of the people on my careers guidance course at UWE; being a graduate of Spanish and French, I was asked “But in Kingswood, you don’t get an opportunity to practise your languages, do you?” This comment was accompanied by a smirk; I took slight offence because although it’s true that where I live is not a cultural hub and I don’t meet many people who are multi-lingual there, Kingswood is not formative of who I am.  Moreover, it’s not a bad place, and given that the area of Bristol that this person comes from is more renowned for crime and poverty than mine, it’s somewhat hypocritical and condescending.

Anyway, I went to Peterborough to spend the weekend with Toby last weekend, and I had a wonderful time, but I noticed that for him, life and his sense of community is different: he knows all of the people who live in his close and a lot of those who live in his village.  He went to school up the road from his house; he can point out many people in the photographs included in the local Parish News (I am unaware of Kingswood having a Parish News leaflet, or any kind of worthwhile community publication). It is interesting that I cannot do this.  I always went to school on the other side of the city, because my parents paid for my education and decided to send me to those schools (and based on my subsequent track record and academic success, I can’t quibble with their decision – it was pretty wise and with hindsight I would now have done the exact same thing).  When I went through a brief phase of playing with the family of girls who were my age and lived across the road from me, they had a group of kids who lived in the neighbouring streets as their friends: I knew none of these people because they all went to the same school down the road from our house; I went to a private school across the city.  We had different school holidays, different teachers, different friendship groups, different subjects.  In retrospect, that was most definitely for the best but at the time it felt like I had to work extra hard to fit in with them.  Despite living across the street, it was like I was visiting another world, their world, every time we would play together, and after a couple of years the visit wouldn’t be worth it, and we would just say hi without animosity as we occasionally passed each other on the street.

However, whereas Toby can name all of his neighbours and various people who live in his village (and I also understand that part of this is the difference between city / country-ish mentalities), I enjoy my popularity when I wander round the Bristol city centre – Mike commented once on a shopping excursion that it seemed as if I knew at least one person in every single shop (and there are a lot of shops).  This is an exaggeration of course, but not a massive one; I like shopping and I used to work in retail in that area, therefore my face is recognised in the area and I can recognise acquaintances who work there too. An amusing story is the Guess Boutique – whenever I go in the staff are extra-happy to see me because they still remember the time Toby & I went in and I fell in love with a bag that I could not afford; Toby & I left and I spent the whole of that Friday night babbling about the bag. Saturday lunchtime we returned to the store and I bought not only that bag that I had originally claimed was “too expensive” but also a hoodie to boot (it was on sale, there was only one and it was in my size, it was black and gold which are my colours – it was obviously fate so who am I to stand against destiny?). I don’t know if the staff there work on commission but I think that that day, they were very happy!  So I make friends in shops.  My friends who live in Bristol may have gone to school or university with me, but we came from all different parts of Bristol (and their experiences of commuting to find a community may be quite similar to mine) so urban centres, shopping districts, cafés and cinemas are our meeting points.

My point is, I have my own community of people whom I call my friends; friends are the family you can choose, as they say.  However, my friends are all dotted about the city (and beyond that, the country); the way we keep in touch is via telephone, email and internet most of the time; and when we want to meet in person, it’s got to be an arranged thing rather than a spontaneous wander down the road.  Although it can feel slightly isolating living where you have no real connection to anyone else in the immediate vicinity, it’s made irrelevant by the fact that I can speak to and arrange to see a lot of my friends within very little time; and that my friends are so, so good to me.  I think that having my own space is something that I value too; at the end of the day, I can retreat to my home and have a little time for me, safe in the knowledge that I’m not going to bump into or be harassed by anyone who knows me.  I can be anonymous, think independently, live as I choose without any fear of anyone whom I care about judging me. I know that in Kingswood, I dress differently, I wear different clothes, I speak and think differently to the majority.  I would never change that; I like being my own person and I won’t ever change to conform (a hard lesson that built my character during my school years). But it’s made easier when I’m surrounded by people with whom I have absolutely no desire to fit in. My community, the people whom I love and value, are my friends; my community is not local but instead city-wide, national, and one day I hope it will be global.

edgier.

Having been on my new university course for 3 months now, and having made some really close friends who are generally a few years older than me (my closest friends on the course are 33 and 35), I’ve really been able to see how far I’ve come as a person.

Looking back at myself even 4 months ago when I had only started writing this blog, I knew myself, but myself was unsure and nervous.  I felt as if I was in a rut professionally after graduating with a good degree from a prestigious university, personally I had had “friends” who turned out not to be friends at all slander me and accuse me of things (theft, bullying) that I had and have never done, and would never do in a million years.  I took it all on the chin and just had faith that things would get better, but I knew in my heart that I didn’t know what would happen.  Would this careers guidance course be the right decision for me?  What was going to happen to me?  Had I peaked already in my life?

The answer to that last question, now I see, is an emphatic NO! Obviously I was only 23 (now 24) and to paint myself as an underdog who had it all and then lost it was more than a little unfair to myself.  I now know that I have so much going for me, so much to offer, and I am not an ugly or stupid person no matter how much certain people may endeavour to make me feel that about myself.  I deserve the best, and with this new qualification, new friends who seem to value me for me from the jump, and new confidence, I feel that I can get the best.  Once again, I’m back on track, and more than anything I’m so relieved.  I may paint myself as confident and assertive – and I am those things – but underneath I still get nervous and insecure.  Now, I finally see that I really am worth more.

I guess it’s a part of natural evolution.  I’ve grown up a lot, and although it took pointing out, I am older than my years.  I don’t feel out of place hanging out with 30-year-olds, because we have the same mentality and experiences.  People generally have trouble guessing my age (I still get ID’d for buying cigarettes on the one hand – which makes Mike LOL and envious at the same time!; on the other hand, a couple of people on my course originally thought I was late 20s because of the fact I can articulate myself and hold my own in discussions), but although I may tease my colleagues at university about receding hairlines, wrinkles and old age, I don’t feel any difference between us.  Aaliyah really had it right – age ain’t nothin’ but a number.  Usually it correlates to maturity, but not always.  At the end of the day, people are people, and we are all human.

These are things that I already knew to be true, but having them held up in front of me has forced me to accept these things as positives about myself.  It’s finally really sinking in.  And the truth of who I am as a man, as a human being, is finally coming out.  This is what I wanted to write about really, but it took the backstory above to get there! (Sorry… but I always give you the main course – no snacks here!)  I thought that I was an adult after university (by which I mean my undergraduate degree at Oxford), but it took me a bit longer.  Working at the Perfume Shop gave me a taste of the hard grind, working for not enough money and being treated like I didn’t have a brain (the saving grace was superficially decent friendships and getting to work with fragrance and deepen my knowledge of it).  My newer job at the hospital has made me see how people can be valued in their work, both monetarily and in terms of being treated like an intelligent human being.  My new course at university has helped me see what I really want to do, and now having that thrust forward has completed me and erased some of my doubts (not all, but some is certainly a step forward) about my future and my life’s purpose.

As things around me have been moving in the right direction, so I’ve been able to spread my wings and become more of who I am.  I love smoking – I’m not a moron and I know it’s not good for my health nor my voice, but I enjoy the feeling from it, the fact it kills time, and the socialising aspect of it – I think it goes hand in hand with being confident and conversational, as you often get approached by people who want a light / spare fag, and you end up conversing with strangers because you share an appreciation of nicotine!  In turn, smoking has reduced my hunger (allowing me to stick to my no-evening-snacking policy) and I’ve dropped a waist size – people at uni have christened me “good looking”, “pretty boy” and lots of other complimentary things referencing both my physical looks and my fashion style. I feel more confident in and out of my clothes – although I’m such a perfectionist that I’ll never be satisfied!  But looking at my vanity and my past issues with my own body and self-esteem, I’ve come a long way.  I feel happier in my skin physically as well as emotionally – and I’m feeling more confident to express the edgier, darker sides of myself which set me apart from others.

After years of deliberation, changing my mind and refining my ideas, I’m finally set on getting tattoos!  One is a stylised A, which you can see here; the other will be above my left collarbone mirroring it, and will be a gun.  I’ve been inspired by Rihanna‘s gun tattoo, but I want it because to me a gun is a symbol of strength and power, of aggression and conflict, of edginess and darkness.  These are all things that I embody – I am tougher than some people initially assume, and I want an emblem of that grit and fire.  I feel it’s applicable to me, and also quite exciting and sexy.  And whereas before I might have balked at the permanence of a tattoo like that, now I feel mature and comfortable enough in myself to be able to wear it and pull it off.  This is me – maybe I’m a good boy gone bad, but I still have a good heart; I have just spent too long in my life pleasing others, and now I’ve finally lunged for myself with this course and am reaping the rewards much more than I ever did listening to other people’s opinions on what was best for me, I believe in my own capacity to make decisions.  I’m not an angel, I’m not a good boy, and I’m tired of portraying that.  I am me and I have a good heart and an intelligent mind, but sometimes I enjoy being provocative or sexy or pushing the boundaries.  That is just as valid a part of me, and my new friendships embrace that part of me too and love me for it.  My infatuation with a married man who has become my best friend and is actively ok with my affection and flirting and actively returns it has been a revelation to me.  We understand each other, we can control our affections (he feels the same way about someone else) and be mature adults, but we also have fun with it – we accept each other and I never felt so comfortable to be able to be so emotionally honest with someone I knew would accept me for who I am. From him I learned what it is to be a good father, a good husband, a good man, and also that whatever I’m feeling, I am a rational person and I should never feel guilty for my feelings.  I should never feel stupid, and the sign of a good friendship is being able to admit how you’re feeling and that other person accepting you for it and not telling you it’s wrong or silly.  Again, these are things I superficially knew, but feeling and living them is a whole other revelation.  I hope that my friends can one day think of me in the same way.

So my embracing my dark side instead of being afraid of it; my becoming edgier is a natural emancipation, a natural evolution of me.  I am free to be who I am, and I am proud of who I am.  I’ve felt ashamed, even in small doses, for too long.  It took a long time to get here, and I’m sure in the future I will still make mistakes and waver, but hopefully I can come back and read this post and remember my feelings right now, and that’ll keep me going.  Once a good boy goes bad, we’re gone forever – but I wish I’d gone sooner and I look forward to where I’m going and whom I’m going with.