Family

Sometimes i think about how it must feel to be gay and in the closet, constantly wanting to shout it out and tell people, that feeling you just could explode at anytime and once you did the weight would be lifted and your world would be yours nothing to hide from anyone.... i feel like that a lot but im not gay and i have no idea what it is i want to shout.

My family life is weird, i've never felt comfortable with it and its always made me feel , odd, i think is the only word i can use. When i was one my father was having an affair with the next door neighbour when she fell pregnant and he left. He did it for love i guess, and even though now i understand that concept, it has not made things emotionally any easier. Im sure it is this that has influenced my behaviour towards women which is questionable to say the least and i feel bad but i keep doing it, treating people like dirt.
It also has affected how i feel towards people in general. Unconditional love towards family should be a given but in this case i love and despise all at the same time. It is not being able to understand these feelings as a boy which made alcohol appealing when i first started. One thing alcohol does is make you feel a certain way, love, hate, sexual, anger, confident. These emotions can be seen pouring out of people every weekend along any high street.
I was a very timid child who was scared of everything, my mother spent most of her time reading i were not often in the same room. I stayed hidden away in some part of the upstairs playing with my toys and thinking up whole new worlds and scenarios. Where i grew up was particularly rough and i had to build up a front in order to cope with the reality i was confronted with. For most of my school life i was bullied and it was a moment i remember thinking, no more. It was drugs which in a strange way made this stop. Drugs in schools such as the one i went to are often considered a status symbol  of being tough or cool. Its not the case though. It was also years as a teenager smoking weed and dabling with other things that made me hide in my shell more a silent character in the backdrop to high to think or speak. when i first started drinking i used to love how confident it made me i was like a whole new person and to me, someone who loathed himself so much, this was amazing.
A man once pulled a knife on me on my doorstep when i was standing there talking to friends, this moment i think made realise exactly where i was and again the confidence brought by alcohol once again felt more appealing, maybe i wouldn't have been so scared and wet myself.
This self sufficient innocent boy in his bedroom with nothing but good intentions, creative imagination and love for all things nerdy without even knowing it, would be a boy i would search to find for the rest of my life somewhere within.
The sense of being a creative is later something that fuelled my lust for alcohol, with the names of Kerouac, Bukowski, Keith Richards all ringing out in my head. It worked for them, why not me?
These were my family in later life, these mystical people with the power of creative genius at their beck and call, but for me it has not lead to this, it has only lead to depression and not being able to motivate myself or stay sober long enough to master my endeavours.
As i touched on there depression, when i was about thirteen my mother had a nervous breakdown and on that night i felt myself change forever. My family it seemed had been expecting it and when it happened all came quickly. When my uncle arrived (from the previous post about the ferry incident) he grabbed me and threatened to beat me as he thought it had happened as a result of my actions.  I don't know if i contributed i probably did, but it was more to do with a mental instability that appears to run in my family. It made me again feel hatred towards a family member.
It was this incident which lead me going to live with my father for the first time, it also was the time my step sister ran away from home after my dad attacked her in a rage. No one noticed i was there so busy trying to find her for what was maybe six weeks maybe more. It was also the first time i felt part of an actual full family home, and even though there was so much despair, i loved it.
Having to go home after was difficulty as my mother was clearly not the same but she was still my mother and i love her the most. It did make me feel let down, and i really do know this is a terrible selfish thing to feel, but you can't help the way you feel.
As a teenager i had a small group of friends, and only now i realise the one thing apart from the smoking of weed we had in common, that is all our home lives we're not normal ones by any standard. I will not talk about them as it is not my right to talk about other peoples lives apart from my own.
I had one friend out of them who was my closest friend and who betrayed me and broke my heart and also led me to leave where i was living and move away. Again into my fathers this time though it was not a pleasant experience as i was clearly not welcome and after overhearing my step mother telling him i had to go i simply packed my bags and left. I then was eighteen and at this age the drinking started in full earnest. As any 18 year old it is viewed as acceptable normal behaviour but this was not and i don't know if anyone really noticed the full picture of what was happening. At this time with no prospects for work i decided to join the army. The regiment my uncle, the man from the ferry, the man who had been so cruel to me when my mother was ill. A girlfriend who will have a whole piece dedicated shortly once pointed out that i am drawn to people who do not love me whilst pushing away the ones who do. I will also cover work life later as well and stick solely to family for this piece.
Living with my stepfather who at this time my mother didn't live with was an odd experience, i had never shared a house with another man, i had never had a father in my life on a day to day basis, and him himself having no children i feel neither of us knew how to feel.
He has though in these years become someone who i have grown to love very much and is now as much a father to me as my own if not more.

My grandparents on my fathers side had once wanted to take me to live with them in chance of what they considered a better upbringing but my mother would not even entertain the idea. My memories of my grandad are little as he died when i was young but i remember how kind he was, always trying to teach the timid little boy to defend himself. My grandmother i saw a lot especially before she died of a cancer which horribly ate her away slowly. It was before she died she told me little bits about her life and i felt i knew her the better for it.
On my mothers side my granparnets were separated after having seven children. My grandfather who is still alive as i write at the age of 94, had run away with his secretary who was half his age. He is where the charm comes from, he is a very charming man and as a result has always been a ladies man. As a father he was violent and the stories my mother has told me are not nice, but then war makes monsters of men, and his war time was not a pleasant one. My grandmother Grace held the family together but as they had moved down the country the eldest children had left home, mostly due to my grandfather, until they came to Southampton where my mother and her younger brother would stay. My grandmother was an amazing women with thick black gypsy hair and i always feel this is a part of my ancestry as all of my family have never stayed put (apart from my mother) She was someone i truly felt loved by but sadly she also passed away when i was young, again of cancer.

My family life these days consists of a good relationship with my younger brother who his daughter i love completely and unconditionally and is one of the reasons i have given myself for giving up alcohol. My mother and step father i have good relationship with even if sometimes i feel they should have intervened in my drinking problem but that is fine. Unfortunately my father and i have drifted apart and rarely see each other maybe speaking once a month. This is sad but i do not have the energy to try and be a part of someones life who doesn't want it. I also have a very close family who have all but adopted me who i spend every Christmas with and also are the people who have helped me the most in moving in a better direction with my life.