Goodbye Mum

Goodbye Mum.

It feels strange calling you that. You never let me call you that. I always called you by your first name as you thought 'Mum' sounded too old. But I like it. It indicates a bond between us that was never there.

I know you always hated me. I never hated you though. I always wanted your respect and approval but never got it. We have not spoken for 8 years but I never gave up hoping. I only wish that things could have been different between us.

I would've loved to have been able to have helped you. You had psychological problems - depression, schizophrenia, paranoia - but you could never admit it to yourself. Your erratic behaviour drove you apart from your family - a sister who was only referred to a couple of times and two brothers who were only ever mentioned once - and also my Dad's family.

My dads parents were really lovely people. They were never the demons you made them out to be. It's a shame I only got to know them when I was an adult and when they only had a year or two left to live. But it was a pleasure to have known them and I am so glad that I got to reunite my Dad with them at the end. I'm quite proud of that.

And so I became the villain. You saw enemies everywhere. You always had to have an enemy, someone whose fault it all was. It was sadly inevitable that once I had patched up the relationship between my Dad and his family that it was going to be me, that it was my turn to be the baddie. I could no longer do anything right in your eyes. The atmosphere in the house when I came to visit became very tense, the temperature sub zero. I became terrified of you - I dreaded going round to see you because I knew you were going to say horrible things about me and belittle me in front of my family.

Looking back now it seems that I didn't have a choice. I did the only thing that I could do to protect my family and my sanity. After one particularly bad screaming-at, (during which you made it clear that you hated me, didn't care what I thought, didn't care what I said...) I stood up and told you that it was unacceptable behaviour to talk to anybody like that, that I couldn't take it any more. And I demanded an apology.

I have waited 8 years for that apology and I don't think I'll be getting one now. The decision to walk away from you was the best (and one of the hardest)decisions I have ever made and I don't regret it for one single moment. I saved myself from further mental bullying and I saved my children from having to witness that kind of behaviour.

I wish that it had all been different, of course. I wish that we could have been a normal family, with love and hugs and respect for each other. I wish that my Dad had had the balls to stand up to you and not just nod his head blindly at everything you said. You always wore the trousers in that relationship, eh?

I am glad you didn't suffer for too long at the end. From diagnosis (Pancreatic cancer from your heavy drinking) to coma and a quick, peaceful death at home (by which time it had spread to other organs) in just 3 weeks. You never wanted to get old and fragile, did you?

It's a shame you were the way you were. You missed out on other people. Not just me and my family, but your family, Dad's family and all the friends you may have got had you not verbally attacked and pushed everyone else in your life away over the years. Most people are a lot nicer than you ever gave them credit for.

I would like to eventually get my Dad back as a friend, although my name will be poison now. I will give him some time but it's not going to be easy for either of us. My brother (who has Asperger's and schizophrenia and suicidal tendencies) never really understood what was going on, just enjoyed being your favourite son. But the negative voices he hears in his head say very similar things to what you have said to me in the past.

I am a very lucky man. I finally know what a family's love feels like. If ever one of my children hated me I would be utterly devastated. Not angry. And I would do anything I could to get them back because I love them so much. I cannot understand what you did to me: all the hurt and hate and venom over the years. How could you ever do that to your son? I just don't get it at all.

R.I.P. Mum. Hope you now have all the peace and inner harmony you never found whilst you were alive. I would have loved to have made peace with you but deep in my heart I knew that that was something you would never have let happen. I was not meant to know that you were terminally ill and I had to respect your wishes. I had no wish to open old wounds. It wouldn't have been right and it wouldn't have been fair to my family. I didn't want to pass that shit on. I am not angry, could never be angry. I just feel sorry for you and the way things were and I wished it all could have been so different.
Love, your son. x

I Can't Get This out of my Head

Other people - @ArmyofDave and @antonvowl among them, have written better blogs than I ever could about the Daily Express headline today. http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/185617 focussing on the proper issues raised by the piece and formulating reasoned arguments against the atrocities contained within. I would just like to use it to highlight the importance of not having narrow-minded preconceptions about certain types of people - whether they be straight or gay - and hopefully as a little thing to cheer up people who are naturally different and don't fit into the rigid boundaries set by 'society' (whatever that is)and spend a lot of their time feeling a little awkward as a result (like me). 'Judge not, lest ye be judged yourself' as someone once said- I think it was James Hetfield of Metallica - and 'There Must be more to life than stereotypes' as Blur eloquently once put it.

It is sad that British newspapers like the Express and the Mail are just platforms for extreme prejudice and the way in which the views of Supreme Court judge Lord Rodger (great name btw) have been reported seems to be an insult to everybody's intelligence. He seems like a very judgemental judge. He said -

“Just as male heterosexuals are free to enjoy themselves playing rugby, drinking beer and talking about girls with their mates, so male homosexuals are to be free to enjoy themselves going to Kylie concerts, drinking exotically-coloured cocktails and talking about boys with their straight female mates.”

WHAT. THE. FUCK?

I am straight. I don't play rugby. I don't WATCH rugby. I don't like golf or Bastard bloody football. (Are you listening people who make Father's Day cards? I don't give a shit about sport. Or DIY. I'm not bald, I've never watched the Simpsons and I don't fart that much.There. Run out of fucking ideas, now, haven't you? )

Just writing about football now is bringing me out in a rash. I have always hated it ever since school when I had to stand and shiver on a freezing field in the snow and ice, dressed in a flimsy pair of shorts, whilst the games master (in a jumper and coat and holding a mug of coffee) barked at us like a mad, angry sea-lion. Afterwards, it would take at least 10 minutes for my fingers to thaw out enough to be able to zip up my trousers.

I have spent the last few weeks desperately trying to avoid all mentions of what I consider to be the most pointless bloody boring past time in existence. After being on tv since about February (well it seems like it) the World Cup finally ends this weekend (had to check that) and then thankfully everyone can shut the fuck up about it. (OK, I did try and bear watching a few minutes of the match that England had to win to qualify but that was more out of a communal sense of 'please don't humiliate us this much, England you wankers' than of any loyalty to the team). 'I don't know or care which teams are in the final. I reckon they should just ask Paul the Psychic fucking Octopus who will win it and save millions by not having to play any of the deathly dull matches.

I don't drink beer. Never liked the stuff. To me it tastes of sweat, fags and unpleasantness. I hardly drink alcohol, apart from at Christmas. But when, a couple of years ago, I DID go out with work colleagues, I would always plump for something sweet, tasty and colourful. Again, this is not because I am gay- I just have a sweet tooth ( I mourned the passing of alcopops as they were priced further and further out of my price range).

I have never talked about girls- not even when I was single. I didn't really think that guys actually did that sort of thing much. I have never been with a group of friends where the conversation has turned to what girls we like or who we fancied. I have never even given that particular topic of conversation any thought and I wouldn't want to talk about girls in that way anyway. I have never cheated or slept around as I have only dated one woman and I've ended up being married to her for the last fifteen years.

What else are heterosexual men meant to like? Cars? I can't stand stand cars and I can't drive, If I had a wish it would be that we's all wake up tomorrow and there'd be no cars (or at least none of those horrible metal, petrol-guzzling cars- I'm up for trying other alternatives and public transport would have to be a million times better organised). There'd certainly be no more football and no more beer (more readily available mead please).

I'm sure there are plenty of beer-swilling, heavy rock-loving, homosexual men out there who've seen the Express article today and were equally offended. It is thoughtless statements and blinkered generalised opinions like those voiced by Lord Rodger that really fucking hurt, every time. But we're all just bloody people - We 're all different- and allowed to be different-aren't we?

But at least everyone likes Kylie - don't they?