Love and sex are very different…
Many years ago I was lucky enough to have the most beautiful girl in the world a part of my life. We were kids. Teenagers. I think i was maybe 17 or 18 when we met, maybe a little bit younger, and she was a little bit younger than me. I was introduced to her by a neighbour, a kind of weird girl everyone talked about but no one wanted to know. She lived on the other side of the hedge, at the back of the property, where I was living.
I remember one day looking through the fence and she just started talking to me, and the next thing was she suggested she knew someone she thought i would like, and a few days later introduced me to her friend, basically telling us that we would make a great couple, and that was how it all began. I didn’t really figure out that i loved her until after we were no longer together, many years later. We went through hell and back together.
Growing up in the 1970s and early 1980s was different. We had 9 planets (apparently Pluto was declassified in 2006), 5 subjects at school (english, maths, social studies, science, and art), and the teachers were allowed to punish kids with a variety of weapons, including the strap (a thick leather belt with a handle at one end to hold onto - though it wasn’t uncommon for the teacher to swing it so hard it still managed to leave his hand when he hit you)… and the cane (which was a longish length of bamboo that the teacher would often break on either (or both) of your hands, and/or arse. Life was different then.
I was surrounded by a culture of drugs and alcohol growing up. It was normal back then to go to the pub, get drunk and drive home. It wasn’t until 1984 when breath testing actually began, and 1988 when people were issued on-the-spot summonses for evidential breath tests, and 1993 that compulsory breath testing of all drivers passing a mobile check point actually began in New Zealand. As far as alcohol was concerned I grew up in the wild west.
I officially started working when I was 14. Unofficially a bit earlier. It wasn’t that unusual. I had completed a 4 year apprenticeship before most people left school. The really funny part is back then the legal driving age was 15, but if you were working before you were 15 your boss could give you a note that you took to the local Ministry of Transport office, and on your 14th birthday you were legally able to get your full drivers licence that was valid for 65 years. I got my truck and trailer licence (and all the other licences under that) because i was already working, and i needed it, when i was 14 years old.
As a result of starting work quite early in life, i was introduced to the culture surrounding a working mans life at an early age. Alcohol was a huge part of that, but so were drugs. I guess it was the choice not to say no that led me down many paths few have travelled. It is because of my association with drugs, and to a lesser degree alcohol, that all of my relationships have never been as real as perhaps they could have been. With that said it is also possible they were more real than they ever could have been without them. Despite everything i have been through, the choices i have made, and the result of everyone of those choices, i am now old enough to accept those choices as being my own. I do not regret who i have become, or spend too much time dwelling on who i might have been if i had made different choices growing up, it seems ridicules to even say it, because I am who I am. I cant change the past. I can just try and make the future a little bit better.
Every time i think about her (points to top of page) i have to remind myself that she is happier without me. I cant change what we did, and what happened as a result. I can just smile within the knowledge that someone i discovered i really did care about is happier where she is now, because she has everything i wanted to give her and couldn’t. Her life is now better because i am not a part of it, and that is just my reality.
Life has a really dumb way of reminding me that anyone i want to care about, is better off when I am not a part of their life, no matter how much i want to share everything i am with that one special someone. If i really do care about someone i have to let them go.
…Love and sex are very different.
Till soon... Stay safe... Be You.
.K