Wow, I am going back some 30+ years here.
Was chatting to someone very special earlier and we touched on this subject.
All my childhood I felt like the square peg ‘they’ were trying to squeeze into the round hole. I really didn’t fit in with anyone, no pigeon hole quite suited me. In my teens that was multiplied many times over! I either had no confidence or too much confidence according to what group I was with. The balance was never really there. Young kids thought I was God, kids my own age thought I was a dog and adults thought I was what the dog left behind, well, that was how it seemed.
Because of that, around adults I had no clue and was forever getting it wrong. I’d be trusting and confident with a ‘grown up’ and they’d treat me like a kid or I’d be shy and timid and they’d think I was weird for not behaving like their equal. It seemed an unwinnable situation to me.
Hell, I was well into my 30’s before I realised that most people felt the same way and we’d find that out if we stopped assuming, bothered to ask and they were honest. Some of the most confident outward sort of people are shitting bricks inside.
Something else difficult to explain is that, well, you know when you think … “I can’t wait to grow up”, well, wait cos it never happens! There had never been a part of my life where I have felt like a grown up. Sure, I know more stuff so am more confident in my thinking but, the doubts are still there, the need to have someone tell me I am a good boy and have done something right! Sounds pathetic but I reckon a lot of people feel that way no matter how hard they try.
So, anyway, fairly screwed up and not fitting in it seemed obvious to me that I was not meant for the life choices handed me, none of them worked well for me. There was always something, some alternate life just around the corner, just out of reach. It was obviously there because it has to be impossible to be so certain something is missing without it existing. My trouble is, I think I got so busy looking that, quite possible I miss what it actually is.
This goes back to that little boy. The need to be special to someone else, to be a good boy and valued. Maybe if we feel no one cares for long enough we reject it when it happens because it becomes so special to us we don’t want to lose it, we have to know it is the real thing first. Obviously, we can’t know that, it has to be on trust but that’s really difficult with a history of hurt.
Of course, I am a lot older now and, probably, a little wiser than my teen self. Even so, I still have that feeling that something else is meant for me, I am meant to be something more. What I am wondering more now though is, could it be I am not seeing the forest for the trees?
Looking back on my dreams from the past, every one of them came true. Not that it happened anything like how I would have imagined it but, it still happened. Is that destiny, Karma? Nah, I just think it was me seeing something amazing and grabbing it with both hands. My insisting that ‘no’ was not the answer I was looking for so ‘try again until you get it right!’
In my mind I am convinced that I shall be a lottery winner and possibly be able to relax when not helping others, a part of me I value above all else. The reality my logical brain goes to is different. That tells me the gravy train is leaving town and I am gonna be an old fart left with nothing probably too scared to put the heating on.
Look, we have shit in our lives, live with it. Forget the shit and how ‘shit’ it is, look at what isn’t shit. I have been lucky enough to have 4 kids and, so far, two grandkids. I have also met and value many friends and my family if forever growing. Yes, life could be better but, it could be a lot worse too and, if that happens, I am gonna just have to accept most of the blame for that. If I am only half the man I think I am, I should be OK when I am older. If I am just kidding myself about who I am then, well, then I am screwed!
How amazing is this … people are alive today because I exist, wow!
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