Older, Wiser, Stronger...except my knees, they are knackered.

I remember as a younger version of me, being told by countless people that with age would come a whole new way to look at the life I lead. I recall just thinking that with age would become some sort of wisdom bestowed upon me that I couldn't access or fathom back then. Partly right there, but it is not bestowed as such, but rather lived through, those experiences, those interactions, those choices and the consequences result in our 'wisdom'.

They are not introduced at the time they occur as 'life changing' and I didn't realise that I was experiencing the steps to make me wiser, actually I mostly thought I was being put through some sort of metaphorical water torture or 1950s clothes mangle. Only now on reflection can I see with those wonderful hindsight spectacles, that wisdom and growth came through tackling scenarios in my life that often I had not prepared for, a little trial and error and then eventually I came to a moment where I either understood and accepted the situation, or accepted it and looked to understand it with varying results.

In recent weeks, months perhaps, I have made decisions and choices that I would never have made 10 years prior. I spent such a long time feeling 'muddled' and unsure of how I fit in to society and the world in general that I set unrealistic goals, expectations for myself that I based on pleasing others rather than fully understanding what it was I wanted. This odd battle inside me of trying to do what I thought was right, and actually what felt right left me in a situation of constant anxiety, but I rarely recognised that. A feeling of not belonging and therefore depression and an overwhelming ability to destroy or wreck anything that I was starting to achieve or work hard towards. My self-esteem and lack of confidence often lead me to prove to others the doubt I always had in myself. I would go out of my way to demonstrate that I was incapable, when actually I was more than capable and just kept my hand firmly over the ol 'Self destruct' button. 

I performed this action so often over the years, easily witnessed in my working life more than anywhere else. I left school without any framework of a plan, absolutely no idea what I was going to do next other than knowing I wanted to be in full time work. My one week work experience at Homebase while in school, funnily enough, did not provide any insight or direction when it came to being out there in the big wide world. I just knew that at whatever cost, I personally could not 'face up' shelves or water dying plants to sell the next day. At the point of leaving school I had allowed my inability to focus or believe in myself to result in more self doubt as I watched school friends continue their education and appear to have mapped out their working careers. I cut the stability of an education system that at very least gave me an air of support and locked gates to prevent escape, to being on the other side of those gates truly missing the structure I once had, hated and rebelled against.

I don't think that feeling is uncommon now as much as it was then. At the same time I left school I started to address my sexuality, I think on reflection this was due to so many factors at the time both socially and internally that had prevented me from understanding a major aspect of what made me, me. In the same month and year I was born our government prohibited the 'promotion of homosexuality' with section 28. This only came to an end a year before I left school, so in turn my entire school life was me already acting like a clown to feel comfortable in a class room full of peers, doubting my ability to keep up with how intelligent I assumed everyone else was in comparison to how 'stupid' I felt. There was this really eerie silence around the thoughts I had about my sexuality in an environment that attempted to teach me everything else, but forgot to inform me that I was not an outsider or menace to society.

That law that prevented the 'promotion' of homosexuality actually just made it the norm to not mention or talk about it at all. As if the discussion of a same sex couple would cause a room of straight pupils to suddenly become gay. I can tell you now, talking about straight sexual couples did not make me straight. Sex education was shown as an act between a man and a woman to reproduce, so how was I to feel as a boy that knew I was attracted to the same sex? I felt scared, I felt ashamed and at a stage of my life where I already didn't have a bloody clue about what was coming next, I didn't feel comfortable in my own skin.