Finding your old things can be incredibly fun, but this bundle of what looks like junk brought back some painful and some amazing memories for me...
I came back home to Wolverhampton this weekend to the house that I have lived in since the day I was born, and moved out of just after my eighteenth birthday to go to university one-hundred-and-twenty miles away. I always love coming home, as it still feels like this is the place I truly belong, and I miss my parents and all my animals so much when I'm away. I feel so much safer in myself and confident when I come home - and it given me a chance to see my oldest and best friend, Ally, as well, which is always a bonus.
Needless to say...now that I have become so accustomed to my furniture, and especially my bed in my house in Leeds, I find it nearly impossible to get comfortable when I have to sleep in my bed at home. I also find that a lot of my stuff that I left behind when I went to university has been moved and stored away or gotten rid of. The only place that has never been cleared out of stuff is a small set of draws next to my bed that I used to use as a bed side table when I still lived here - probably because it's such an array of random things that live in a suspended state of mess. But, when I'm awake in the early hours of the morning finding it difficult to sleep, it became a treasure trove of my past experiences and achievements, which I thought would be an interesting insight to share with you all today as you can learn about where I came from and the things I used to be interested in that made me the person I am today (just not on such a deep level!)
Inside the mysterious draws... *insert spooky noise here*
This selection of items says a lot about me...although it may not seem it. Finding these items made me both happy and sad in very different ways.
The first thing I found was the first hand bag I ever owned, a bright pink small Radley handbag that I used to keep my pound coins in that I got for my pocket money. This brought back such vivid memories of a smaller me using this handbag in the shops trying to help pay for a present for my Mum's birthday, handing over about eight pound coins to my Dad who, unbeknownst to me, put them in my bag again when we got home so I didn't actually spend anything. It would explain why every time I tried to pay for things I had to give the money to one of my parents first and my pound coins would magically turn in to notes or debit cards when I handed them over.
The next, and possibly more embarrassing thing I found, was a sheet of canvas paper which I had attempted to do a landscape painting on when I was about ten years old. I remember like it was yesterday sitting on an old sewerage access block (it's not as strange as it sounds, it's just a massive concrete block in the middle of a field next to my house that if you press your ear to you can hear the water pipes echoing underneath the ground) with my paint brushes and watercolour paints, thinking I was Picasso or something. Needless to say, my painting turned out nothing like a landscape, just separate (incredibly bad) attempts at depicting nature cumulating in a flower, a robin and a tree - all of which could be mistaken for replicas of Minecraft blocks! Despite being a fail at art, however, I did always enjoy it, and despite not getting high marks, I wanted to do it all the way up to A-Level at school as the subject I really enjoyed but wasn't accomplished in. It was the right decision for me - in a sense - as it introduced me to two of the best teachers I have ever had (not including my Maths teacher, Mr Biddlecombe, who was, in all rights and respects, a bloody legend!).
There were also a number of musical memorabilia in my draws. I first found an old certificate from when I was eleven years old, and completed the first of six grades I did on the clarinet. I used to love playing clarinet, although, towards the end of my GCSE years, it became more of an excuse to be allowed out of my Physics class ten minutes early for my music lessons. I also found a few guitar picks which used to belong to the first boyfriend - although I wouldn't consider giving him that title today - as all me and him did was watch disney films while eating jam sandwiches in my shed. It does however give me a proud feeling, because, even though we were only thirteen when we broke up, I am proud to say that he is now a musician and truly followed his childhood dreams - something I wish I could say, but the truth is, I never really had a childhood dream. I've always been quite happy trying out numerous things and sticking with what I enjoy. Unfortunately, what I enjoy doesn't come in the form of a paid job and doesn't allow me to support myself. Unless I get discovered by someone and given a contract to write blogs and make YouTube videos and play games my whole life! *Thumbs up for trying to live the YouTuber dream* - no, but seriously, it really made me reflect on what I have actually achieved in my life. Which, at the age of twenty-four, I can safely say isn't a lot!
One thing I have achieved in my life was being a competent tenpin bowler - I found a medal from one of my first competitions in 1998 and a badge from my youth club days which was for reaching a high score boundary. We all have those sports that we play at school, and have our favourite sport to follow - mine was just a little strange to the majority of the population. From the tender age of five, I was an avid tenpin bowler, competing on a national level and even in some international competitions. It brought me some of the greatest memories of my life, and I got the chance to meet some incredible people from all over the country and beyond who I still keep in touch with (on a small scale) today. It brought me years of fun, laughter, travel and opportunities. Through a number of circumstances, I stopped bowling on the 'serious' tour, and was introduced to one of the few nice people left that I knew in the bowling world, to university bowling, and have made so many more incredible friends through it, and rekindled friendships from old bowling friends, and I have really revitalised my love of the sport.
Well, rant over! I found some happy memories in my draws too. The first thing I found that made me smile from ear to ear was a photograph of me and my Dad in Lapland, Finland on a skidoo. It brought back such amazing memories of a magical holiday, which was even more magical at such a young age because I believed I was meeting the real Santa and Rudolph! I can't argue with the fact that my parents went all out at Christmas - even as far as my Dad shaking bells from the front patio while my Mum and me stuck my head out of the window and stared up at the stars, me fully expecting to see Santa in his sleigh! I have had so many amazing holidays with my parents, and I really miss those times now I am older and far away. They still go on their holidays, but we don't go any more, and that's something I look back on and wish I had made more of my time with my parents at home, rather than spending so much time travelling the country visiting boyfriends and wanting to be alone in my room with my sketch book and my music! Another thing I found, which brought back more memories of incredible holidays was a tile piece, which used to spell out my whole name, which my Mum bought for me when we went to Turkey with my parents friends.
I also found a Beanie Baby, something I used to be obsessed with when I was between the ages of eight and eleven. I ended up with a massive box of all shapes and sizes of TY bears, and even became a member of the TY club, getting a certificate and coin for joining. It made me very happy when I was younger, but now makes me even more happy to go through them all and remember all the times that my parents and me went shopping together for them, finding all these small, independent toy shops in villages that sold special edition bears.
The final thing I found, was something that I never thought I had kept, and something which I was quite unhappy to realise that I still had, and especially that I had found it. I found my old fountain pen from high school, that I used to use when I was fourteen, in the first year of my GCSE's. It was around this time in my life that the bullying I was suffering was at it's worse. The friends that I had been growing closer to had become part of a larger friendship group, and being overweight in an all girls' school can be a very bad situation to be in. A lot of the girls in my class were negative towards me because of my weight, and we were at that awkward age where my friends were supportive, but wouldn't get involved in a way that would put them in the firing line too - which I can't blame them for, and don't! At the start of my GCSE year, at the age of fourteen, the bullying had been going on for two years, and took a turn for the worse. Comments like "here comes the circus tent" became the norm for me to hear, and I spend a lot of my free time sitting on my own in the Sunken Garden reading, drawing, or eating to try and make myself feel better. Things got more ugly when I was given the fountain pen pictured above as a present for attending a birthday party, which one of the girls in my class also went to and got given a similar pen. We used to sit next to each other in history class, and she broke her pen one day. The next thing I knew, I was being escorted away from the rest of my class as they were on their way to home economics class, and being asked if I had stolen this girls fountain pen. She described her fountain pen as the one that I had been given, saying that her's was green like mine, not purple like hers was. The teachers chose to believe her, and the matter was settled by the headmistress and a series of detentions for me. Thinking that this would be the end of it was a big mistake. Notes started getting passed around in lessons to me asking me why I hated this girl and why I was such a nasty person, when I had done nothing wrong. I felt more and more like I couldn't be around people, and I became very disinterested in my school work - which in a school that prides itself on being a hot-bed of overachievers, was just another thing that ostracised me more from my peers.I won't bore you with the rest! I pushed on through the bullying, and eventually made peace with it, realising that if I just changed my friendship group, I would feel supported. Although the bullies were still there, having the support of an amazing group of friends helped me through high school. I still feel depressed to this day, but it's something that I can deal with, and something that I think has made me a much stronger person!
I'm sorry if I you were expecting an interesting and entertaining blog...it got a bit morbid, I'm sorry. Sharing these kinds of things with complete strangers is easy - much easier than trying to discuss them with the people you love, or even the people you know but only consider acquaintances. But, these experiences are what make me the person I am, they are what make me me. I learnt a lot from being bullied, and coming out of it the other end after hitting rock bottom, and anyone else can do the same. There is an answer to everything - and more often than not, the right decision will be the hardest decision to carry out - but it will be the best decision you ever make!
No comments:
Post a Comment