Dear Alex,
Your 20 and life seems to have been slightly rough for you so far being forgotten about by friends, and you took the direction of starting to work and focus on being a manager! You have worked hard the past few years and thought they were hard but, you are now 20 and sadly the next 11 years are going to be just as hard if not harder.
Before you turn 21 you will have the moment your life will change forever, your father is going to be involved in a life changing accident and he will no longer be the same as he will be in a wheel chair. The night of change will be a night of remembrance and many members of the outlawed family will accuse you of the accident that wasn’t your fault and you need to learn to accept that. You didn’t provide dad with any of the alcohol nor did you tell him to walk up those stairs. You will have to move him and you will have to decide which will seem hard and but it’s a life or death call. When you make decision to move him its ok his neck is already broken before you even touch him. It isn’t your fault, you don’t have to put a brave face on and try to carry on or feel guilty you can take time out and be there for your family and yourself.
You will a have to live with dad’s decisions if he wants to trust people you don’t agree with all you can do it try to protect him and support him and make sure he isn’t taken advantage of. The outlawed family will act as if they have not been hidden for the past 20 years of your life. You are 20 not 50, dad wants you to live and accept you didn’t do anything wrong. You have your life to lead and you can be there for your dad and your mum and still try to live! The world now knows your secret that you tried to hide from the world of being gay. Ignore the outlaws as they will hover like vultures and act as if they have always been there. You know differently, they will disappear when they see dad isn’t going to get better and they can’t have anything that is dads as it is yours and it’s all tied up in the estate. Now this is where the seeds of depression will be planted as you will have that fear of stairs and you will struggle to start with to overcome them but you will overcome it. Also, you will relieve that fateful night over and over in your mind and you need to stop it and let it go. It was a horrible accident and you had no control over it.
When you have turned 21 you will celebrate it won’t be the big birthday that you may have wanted but you will be with a small number of people that you laugh and enjoy yourself at the school disco in Hammersmith, others missed out as it was a great night. You got many kisses mainly from odd people but a few nice men too. Few weeks after you do this you will have an interview with the psychologist with dad next to you. Do not listen to them or be pulled into the room as you will be left on your own the psychologist will be focusing on dad not you! This will continue to plant the seed of depression and you need to be strong and accept sometimes it is best people not knowing the full story and dad is one of them. When you are struggling you need to talk to people they aren’t bad some of them are there to support you and will listen if you let them in.
Later in the year you will be faced with another hard hurdle when aunty passes on, close to her birthday and the night before you will be with family, the 4 of you will be in the garden united as the final 4 and you will be together. You will pull through this and will tell work how you feel and be in control you will lose the thorn in your side not long after. Also, you will make work aware you will take time off for your family as it is you family. You will see more change later in the year when you move to a new home, you will see dad in a wheelchair and see him in a care home, and you will have to hold yourself together. When work tells you that you can’t take the time off for your aunt’s funeral, you decided to make the change and find a new job which will be terrifying and completely different to what you are used to but you will grow to love the job and sell more than a pair of shoes! You need to keep your confidence as you know how to work with customers and you know how to get the best out of people you just need to keep you cool and take it on the chin.
With all this change and missing the people you have to talk to people when you need them as they won’t know what is going on in your head if you don’t tell them. Same time you need to make friends with people and stop holding it in. you will make friends with people who are completely idiots and don’t deserve you as a friend. That is normal and they will soon show their true colours. You don’t need to accept their poor choices as your own. Be your age and live your life Alex as no one else will live it for you, and you don’t need to be a keyboard warrior or live your life through other people instead you have to live it for you.
For the next few years you will feel isolated and alone but as I said above you need to move beyond your circle of friends and make a new path that is focused on you instead of focusing on everyone else. Also, you have had a bad deck of cards dealt as you keep saying “it’s better it happened to you rather then one of your friends” well you don’t deserve it and nor should you feel it’s better for you. Instead it just happens and you have been strong so far and have had to pull through a lot this has made you a better person. Many will have crumbled and cracked before now, keep your head held high and keep it high. You will be forgotten about by people but that is a choice they have made and yes some of their choices will be immature and you will not know what to do with yourself at the time but you will get through this. Don’t let your mind dictate who or what you want to do, you can do anything you want when you put your mind to it and be the person you want to be.
When you turn 27 you will have a very big shock and a biggest change you have ever faced in life. Dad will finally be at peace and he will make the decision to be at peace. This will be devastating and he will pass on his birthday. You will be there and you will have to keep strong as you will have to deal with the outlaws and put them in their place a lot as you will lose your father and that is the most important part, they are losing one of their own who they share some DNA with but they won’t have the memories you have with your dad or learning how to say, “yellow yolk” they won’t know this and you will. The cousin who is jealous of you will be there and say she is losing her uncle and make you feel bad for not always being there for dad but he admitted he wanted you to live! And he said this in front of them all that he wasn’t always there for you, this is a big thing as you have never heard him admit his mistakes like this or that he is proud of you. Spend the time with your dad and the rest of them will have to disappear. You will go through the argument with them as they are jealous of your relationship with him, as they will be guilty of where they have been for the years and they will never admit this to anyone.
Your friend won’t know what to say or how to act with you as they don’t know what has been going on and you need to make sure you make time for them. Don’t keep being a lone wolf and suffer in silence. For many months, you will fight with the outlaws and there will be a point you will slowly start to live. You will have a fantastic holiday to Murcia with 3 great people. Work will be supportive about taking time away and coming back into the business, you will slowly start to build the confidence to make new friends and start a new life as you want it and attend your first big gay event such as Manchester Pride and you will also get the confidence to go to Edinburgh to attend Bearscots. You will go to both events and you will have a great time and you will even leave one of the events with a boyfriend which you didn’t anticipate ever happening.
You will be happy for a while and you will be confident and make some big changes over the years with a career change and move from where you call home of London. You are with him and eventually you will have to let him go the sooner you do the better as he will hurt you and not make priorities you before his ex and you will always play second fiddle, he will mess with your mind and make you feel inferior because he forgets how important you are.
When you make the cut, you will go into a spiral and start to live your new life and lose the confidence and start to encounter the worst depression as it will have all mounted up to implode in your mind. Throughout you will have some people playing games with your mind manipulating you and you will find someone who has helped to make you feel human for a brief period. You will find you finally snap and your mind will implode, you will take the time you need to regroup and rebuild your mind. You will regroup and settle into your new environment with a new home that you can call your own. You need to reject the negativity and remove all the toxic people from your life they don’t belong in your life.
As you grow and mature and find your safe space in your mind, then you will encounter more difficult challenges over the year you must pick who you want to be associated with and if you want to be involved in the challenges. You can take a step away when you need from some people if you do not agree with people’s morals or past decisions. Remember you know the difference between right and wrong and those who stand with you. You also must move on and accept somethings may never happen its life and you have proven over 11 years with all the fight and battles you have had you deserve to be happy and find that person who deserves you.
You have to let people into your life and you need to be honest with others and make them aware of how you feel. The person you might wish to be with may not actually be the right person for you. Don’t wait for Mr right now wait for Mr Right and enjoy yourself in the now. You deserve it, and you need to accept it as well. You are stronger then you will ever believe.
Love
ME.
X
I am ONE 