Back in England :(
After a long and tortuous trip I'm now back in England in one piece ... well, physically anyway.
I've left heart and my home in Olympia. I miss Miya and Sarah so much, I'm trying to put a strong face on things but inside I'm screaming. I've not been able to get more than a few hours sleep at any time, if I don't cry myself to sleep I wake racked with grief. I keep expecting to see them just walk in or when I look up from my laptop, and when I don't it breaks my heart.
I don't know how long I have to live in exile, I don't know when I will see them again and its killing me.
Following my encounter with Garcia when I first landed in the US, I was worried he had put stuff in my file that would make future trips much harder than they should be. On the way back my fears were realised. My checked luggage was searched at every airport in the US I passed through, seems the TSA have me on their lists. I'm terrified I will try to go back to the US and find I've been red flagged, get taken for an interview only to be turned away and flown home. All because I'm trans and Garcia doesn't like trans.
Being back in the village I grew up isn't comfortable for me. Went out to the pub for a meal to celebrate my Dad's birthday,feeling shattered and jet lagged I decided to walk home before everyone else. Big mistake. Walking the familiar streets home I felt more afraid for my own safety than I have in many years, more terrified than I have ever been at any time during my transition.
When I was a teenager I was beaten frequently for having long hair and looking girly, several times it happened as little as 50 metres from my front door. I remember being so scared that I wouldn't leave the house on foot, and walking home has brought all those memories flooding back.
I know most of the people responsible will have moved on years ago, I know I shouldn't be as afraid as I am, but I don't feel safe here out alone. Don't think I ever will.
I’m addicted to nicotine.
I'm addicted to nicotine.
Started smoking in my early teens because a friend did and we all felt invincible. Everybody smoked, it was just something you did. I'm not addicted, won't happen to me.
You can't explain to a teenager what addiction actually means, the only way they can understand is after it's to late. So, despite all the no smoking propaganda in school, we smoked and were proud of it. I'm not addicted, won't happen to me.
Then we smoked because we needed it, scraping change together to buy enough cigarettes to last that day, pack of 10 between friends. Working rubbish jobs just to make enough money to smoke for the week. I'm not addicted, won't happen to me.
Skint all the way through college, smoking only because I could find enough money to buy me a pack of 10 in the morning. Looking round the house for loose change, borrowing from friends, parents pockets, anywhere I could get it. I'm not addicted, won't happen to me.
After college, things became easier as I jot proper jobs, could afford to smoke, thinking about quitting. Tomorrow, next week, new year, after easter, when they cost £5 a pack. I can give up anytime, I'm just happy being a smoker. I'm not addicted, won't happen to me.
Trying to quit, much harder than I ever expected. Feels like a hunger, cigarettes on your mind, all the time, need one, just one, can't concentrate, irritable. Failing and making excuses, had a bad day, try again tomorrow, I only had 2 today, I'm going to cut down first. I'm not addicted, I just need the right circumstances to give up.
Nicotine replacement therapies, salvation! Just wear this patch and you magically stop smoking, works for a while, then you have a bad day and take the patch off and spark up. Funny how you can go weeks without a real cigarette, take the patch off and carry on smoking as if you never stopped. Patches never work quite as well once you've realised how easily they come unstuck.
Chewing gum, much better than patches, much better than cigarettes! They really work well, you can chew it all day and not think for a second about lighting up. They work too well, you end up more addicted to the gum than you ever were to the cigarettes. If you ever run out of gum, well, a cigarette will do in a pinch till you can get some more.
Cold turkey, just stop, throw your cigarettes in the bin and hang on for dear life. If you can make day 3 you have it cracked. After that you just have to keep your resolve and not buy any more. Its hard, you fail, try again, never stop trying, because one day you might just make it.
Before bed tonight I am throwing all my smoking related things in the bin, a ritual I have undertaken more times than I care to remember. But this time will be different, I can feel it, I want it, I know I can do it.
I'm addicted to nicotine.
Beginnings
I've never been one for putting my thoughts down, although I've always known I should and now, after much procrastination and good intentions its time to start. So, I figure I might as well just start from the beginning. Just don't judge my mutilation of the English language.
Until puberty, everything was just fine. I was a happy child, good family and friends, had a serious lego addiction, my bike and a love of computers. Perfectly normal for your average growing boy.
The only problem was that's where the average boy stopped.
All my close friends were girls, I found their company and interests far more in tune with what felt natural to me, and secretly I wished I was one of them. I feel at this point it has to be said that I was never your stereotypical transsexual child, dressing up, wearing make up and declaring myself female at the earliest opportunity.
Now, at the time it simply wasn't much of an issue, next to riding my bike, hours spent making lego trains and passing notes to my girlfriend who lived in the house behind mine, gender just wasn't important. I was happy with my world, my circle of friends and my interests. I was me.
Then in my last year of junior school we moved to a different area and had to start a new school an nothing seemed to fit any more. I had lost my circle of friends and found it almost impossible to make new ones. The relationships I had forged in primary school and that accepted me for who I was without question were gone, now I truly understood that I was different.
The natural draw I felt to play with girls met with rejection, on the surface I was a boy, and as we all know, boys are smelly and eat worms.
Befriending boys was slightly less difficult, being a worm eater on the surface is enough to get you past the first hurdle, but it doesn't take long to discover you have very little in common. I tried so hard to try and fit in, I struggled at sports, joined a football club because someone I wanted to be friends with played, and spent hours standing in goal, cold, wet and muddy.
(For what its worth, I still don't understand sport.)
It was also very obvious to most of the boys that I didn't fit, and thats when the bullying started.
By the time I started comprehensive school, I had found a small group of friends with enough similar interests to allow friendship, George Lucas has my eternal gratitude for Star Wars, if it wasn't for the dolls, I think I would have been very lonely. For the first time in my life, my circle of friends was almost exclusively male, geeky, video gaming, comic book reading, table top role playing indoor boys, but boys all the same.
The exception was a friends sister who I felt very close to.