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Saturday 21 September 2013

The Aftermath

NOTE: This is going to be a LONG blog, as it encompasses a month that has had more emotion and reaching consequences than almost my entire life. Be prepared for a long one...

A month that will forever change me.

I write that line not sure what it truly means for me...I was supposed to do this blog weeks back but every time i sat down to write it something new would throw itself at me and those around me...so i thought it best to give it chance to, as it stands, cool down. And while at the present moment things have died down, if I leave this for another week then another 1,000 words could easily be tagged on. Seems as good a time as any.

An experience to forget.

America was the focus point of my life for almost ten years, each moment leading up to it was spent questioning if what was about to happen was truly wanted. If the experience was too much for someone on my relatively narrow shoulders...I had stomached big changes in my life before, and this would be no different. At least that was the plan.

Every reason I chose America as my point of call was a complete falasy. Preconceptions about the country, its people, the surroundings and everything else was thrown aside like a typhoon...each point that made Long Beach sound like the place I wanted to be shot down in the opening moments. And when talking to those that live there, nothing sounded much better either. Note before you see this that ALL of these reasons for going were told to me by people I had confidence in, as well as travel agents!

The transport is one of the best in the country, just like home!: Lies, in the entire of my area we had five buses, they ran every hour at best, some didn't even turn up at times...something that was clearly a normal occurrence as taxi's would pull up, suspiciously, five minutes after a bus should have turned up, and the locals just seemed to accept this. I'm a kid with a world famous transport network, and while willing to accept failings...that many? Really?!

The nightlife is immense, you will never be stuck for things and places to do and go!: Lies, when we got given the list of these things it barely fit on a piece of A5 paper...we had the grand sum of three bars that they recommended, everything else was apparently "too sketchy" to even go near. No nightclubs of any description, only LA had these...and as points will show, this simply was not an option. Even if we accepted these three bars (which closed at 10/11) then the issue rose that drinking just was not a culture at all, if anything, in this area, it seemed as if it was frowned upon...I'm a brit! Get real!

World class beaches, and some of the most vibrant city-life imaginable, you're day-times will always be full!: You kidding me? All of the beaches are around three miles away from an off shore oil rig, or six...which means that the amount of crappy slurry coming up onto these supposed golden beaches begs belief. As for the city-life...You know things are bad when the locals spend fifteen of the allotted twenty minutes for this section in the induction...wait for it...telling you how good the museums are. THE HELL MAN?! For someone who, while working at uni, still wants to be a tourist. At worst this is all worthless...even at the best case scenario. After about two weeks you'll have seen everything!

All the major cities are close-by, you're never more than twenty minutes from LA and getting there is so cheap, imagine it being like at home!: This one was beyond bullshit. And also misguided. Sure, twenty minutes from LA is technically true. If your in a car....without traffic...on the busiest freeway into LA...Yeah....NO! I was told by the shuttle bus driver on the way into Long Beach that if we got there in under an hour he'd be shocked. That alone filled me with worry because clearly getting to the vibrant metropolis of the world was going to be harder than i first though. But that's fine right? They said it was cheap? Or not...to get to LA costs by taxi around $80 (£60)...and that's if you don't tip the guy...which just isn't the done thing...so let me get this straight, to be a tourist i would need to spend around £130 every time i wanted to get to LA and back...and thats assuming i don't come back past midnight where as i was told "the taxi's charge whatever they like...they deduce, correctly, that if you dont take them, how else do you get home?". I'd budgeted well, better than anywhere before...but this shot my budget to bits...

Standards of living are higher, but with the exchange rate, it'll work out the same if not cheaper to eat places...plus you have catered halls, so it's basically free anyway: Not only is this a lie, it's also a direct gripe with the uni...When we applied for catering, it was said i had three meals a day...but they never mentioned that when you landed for the first week you had no food at all and had to fend for yourself, when the nearest food outlet was three miles away, with no public transport...Plus with the exchange rate it was still absolutely hideous...I have never before paid £19 for a breakfast and trust me, i have no intention of doing it again!!

Got this far? Good, long way to go.

The surrounding area is one of the most pleasant in the entire state!: Bitch please. I had bars on my window and that was not because of people trying to get out! (Although at this point, I already did). Crime was apparently one of the highest worries around the area, I barely saw a single white person and, while I am not racist, walking through a crime ridden neighborhood where the shadows move is not something i fancy doing...although with public transport...yeah....fuck. That's not so bad in August, but think ahead to December, when the nights finish at four, and im walking down there at 7 hearing nothing but hip hop blasting from the houses? Sure, i could walk through a veterans housing estate to get home...and extend the trip by around five miles...nine miles just to dodge a bunch of convicts every time i want to go and do anything? screw that. Also another point with the surrounding area, down the road of my uni was basically the direct route to LA (As it turns out, my road if you take out the freeway may as well have been the A1, around 60 miles in length) and as such EVERY shop was geared to people passing through...I could have built more cars than meals on that road and i'm not joking either! SIXTEEN spare car parts stores against...wait for it....one. Yes. One. convenience store...and it was a Chinese one...fuck. Oh and one quick note. I was at BEACHSIDE college...I was told this was near the BEACH...total distance? Miles...total distance to a decent, non oil ridden beach? Don't know, never found one.

The people of California are some of the most friendly you will ever meet, and the course-mates you will have are just as eager to meet new people as you are!: If ever an award for "biggest hyped up pile of crap" existed...this would be the only one allowed on the shortlist. It'd win on the spot! California is full of some of the most arrogant, self absorbed arseholes ive ever had the pleasure to meet...in my time I have spoken to X factor contestants and self made millionaires with a more humble nature about them than these idiots could manage in their entire lives. You are there to please them, pay them, service them or be sued by them. That's the image you get, and that's the image they seem to embrace. Now it wouldn't be bad if the course-mate thing was true. But in a halls that fit 400 people (Soon to be 600, thats how many extra entries they had), us internationals had to come early. So only 25 were on campus, when we finally met some proper students I was all giddy with excitement...at last! people to speak to! time to get mingling! Yeah or not, the only person out of the few hundred at my induction that would speak to me was some french guy. Nice guy, but when he went off as i left to go back to the apartment and tried to get people to go for a drink a group of 30 sitting around just blanked him outright...felt for him that day. Hope he's done better for himself since.

Halls life is amazing, the people are brilliant, parties are mad and (for my halls specifically) it's been the one everyone wanted to stay in for five years running!: What idiot did the vote for that? No seriously im asking. He needs to get shot...although in that neighborhood he probably already had! The halls were terrible, your room was stone white walls with mattresses elevated 5 feet high (No reason at all, just cause), bars on the windows and the entire ceiling was surrounded by the air conditioning...not hidden at all, just there...along with the fuse-box for (what i later found out) the entire third floor...yeah, one drunken night and that is not ending well for anyone wanting power ;-)
Well, I say that, the reps we had in our halls had been hand picked to be the most boring arseholes imaginable, clearly the halls MAY have had the reputation for rowdiness because these lot were poised to dance all over that fire the second it appeared. And im sorry, I cant take orders on drinking and general antics from someone two years younger than me...who has never touched (yeah, believe it) a single drop of alcohol in his life...the hell? I'm gonna answer to that? FU SON, FU!

Not even halfway yet, keep going!

Now I'm fairly sure that I've missed loads out on that so feel free to ask me for more...but suffice to say that all of that, coupled with the fact i was 5,500 miles away from home, with, clearly, nothing to do, nobody to talk to, nowhere to go, and nothing to eat...it destroyed me. I spent almost every hour in tears, I kept trying to think of good things but it made me more depressed when capable of shooting them down. Within a day I knew this was not for me...Nothing i was told was true, had I known even half of this the flights and trip would have never even been booked! But the pressure from home was completely relentless. At a moment where you could do with comforting and supporting (Remember, I have never been away from home, and now im on the other side of the world) I was instead attacked on all fronts...It's the closest to the depression days of my school life ive ever reached...violently sick for almost the entire trip, never ate a single meal until the day before I left (And still chucked that up), depressed and, coupled with the heat, disorientated. Meant that I simply had to leave. Now I know the argument for "just wait it out" was all over the place, but my reasonings for not doing that are threefold:

1. I was told by the tutors who live in Long Beach that my gripes are well founded, but "its the way it is" and that the things i have an issue with are simply part of the fabric of Long Beach and the life of uni in America.

2. I know from past experience if im feeling depressed on that scale, waiting it out damages me. I waited out things in the past and, with regards to school and bullying, have spent almost ten years having flashbacks...I still have not fully recovered from that to this day. So to put myself, optionally, through that again was just not right

3. The longer I stayed the less likely i could stay on my degree, and that is something I simply could not let happen. No matter the consequences.

So the decision was made, off my own back, with all of my savings, I would organise my own flight back to England. When I had made the booking it was the first, and only, smile shown on the entire trip. It was no longer four months of torture, it was going to end......That smile did not last. And i've barely cracked one since.

The Trip Back

I hate Germans. I hate them more than you could ever realise. Because of the lateness of my booking I basically had to take a connection from LA to Dusseldorf and then into Stansted. That was fine, the bags would be moved for me and all I had to do was move flights. But let me tell you, being on a place with a screaming kid that was crying and bawling for SEVEN FUCKING HOURS...while you're trying to sleep because you have had, at most, two hours per night. It is the most torturous experience you can imagine. What was worse was the fact that, in true Germanic fashion, the kid's crying was uniformed, and drearily repetitive. It got to the point where halfway through I was praying the kid would do something out of the ordinary just to mix things up! Burp halfway through the crying, make one particular cry last longer? ANYTHING!. Nope, waa-waa-waaaaa...waa-waa-waaaaa....every 7 seconds, for seven hours, with the parents not even attempting to stop him...they were both fast asleep with earplugs. Kill me now seriously.

Once we landed in Dusseldorf we'd struck lucky in that our arrival terminal was the same as the departure for the next flight...pure coincidence apparently, was rather happy about that! (although i did go through border control to leave the room to find this fact out...tedious). But then it got worse...alot worse. 106 flights were on the board during the two hours I waited. Two hours because we got delayed...the ONLY delay of all 106! Now think about it, i've pissed off, and cost thousands, to a dad who's driving at stansted who wont know of this delay...I'm tired and ratty, and he's gonna have to wait around...this wont end well...didn't help that my iPad had ran out of battery and I couldn't even prewarn him! or anyone for that matter!

Oh it gets better! The plane we got was propeller powered...think chicken run and "chocs away" and you have it pretty much nailed on...another bonus that, while fueling, this plane was clearly older than the refulling nozzle is...so half of it was going in, and half all over the floor! Pretty sure if someone lit up, we were all history...And then to top it all off...to add insult to intense injury...You know that kid? the Germanic crying one? Yeah, ONE FUCKING ROW IN FRONT OF ME!!!...And yes. He still was.

Once we'd landed fortunately I'd managed to learn the German for "bastard" which i was singing in a chorus out of the damn plane...think I pissed off half the aircraft but at this point I'd have happily knocked out the first person to complain. Getting my bags however was deeply depressing, as i knew what was about to unfold. This was the bit I had been dreading...I had said on multiple occasions that I'd sort out my own transport back...it was going to be more peaceful, but stupid me got talked into letting him take me home. Why did i do that? Sure enough a face of pure disappointment as i walked into the arrivals terminal. I've let down the man who bought me into this world, gave me everything and spent thousands on this trip. I was distraught, but couldn't show it. I mean how can you? He clearly didn't care about my feelings otherwise he'd have respected my decision (The first i'd ever made against their wishes i might add).

The ride home was torture, every so often we'd have a reasonable conversation and it would lighten me up slightly, thinking that he'd come round...but then some comment would get thrown out about how i'd let them down, or made it so the family could laugh at them, or the money worries, or how i had to be prepared for some flack...I'm distraught, this is completely not necessary. I managed to last until five miles from home before i burst into tears...he didn't care about me? he was more interested in sticking the knife in and letting me know under no uncertain terms how id fucked everything up...i wanted love, i wanted that one piece of affection that, you know, parents are meant to give...

It came to a head when i basically admitted that all i wanted was a piece of comfort, even a "dont worry it'll be alright" would have sufficed, im a bawling wreck at 21 years old...there clearly has to be a reason for this! look past your money/family problems for two seconds and look at how your son is in agony at what has happened!....


...He threatened to kill us both and started speeding at the 4x4 in front of us.

That is the reaction that an distraught 21 year old got. No love, no support, just anger and death threats...that's a complete joke, and dad, if you ever read this, i hope you realise just how much love i lost for you that day. You've spent your entire life living through me trying to have the life you never could. At no point has what ive done been enough. The pressure has always been too much, the expectations have always been too high. I've fought back against it my entire life and all you've ever known is violence and anger. It's your upbringing, i understand that...but you've had years to curb this, and to your own son? No son should be pinned against walls as a child, no son should be thrown into a cat litter tray because of a simple heated argument, no son should have to watch as his mum has to time and again get in the way of his own dad coming to knock him out...to watch his dad through anger or drink or both start lashing out, smashing various doors and anything in his way. You are one of the most important people in my life, but when you behave like this...when you seem to be of the impression that whatever you say is right, everyone else is wrong and to deviate from your demands or opinions is high treason and just cause to start getting all angry and violent, you are a complete joke. You get away with it because you have a wife who wants an easy life and cant be bothered with the hassles of the past and a son who has had it engraved into his head all his life that its not what he wants, but what you want for him. This has to change. And it will change.

To my mum, i love you more than you will ever realise or indeed ever appreciate, but i am sick to death of the passive aggressiveness you have shown as well...you both work well because your both as bad as each other! I've seen you in tears in bed wishing he was different, wishing things were different...and yet you do nothing about it, and when push comes to shove you become two faced in your intentions, you'll happily tell me somethings wrong one day, then fiercely defend it the next. I'm sick of being treated like a complete child. You have constantly given me "that look" which translates as telling me to shut up and just accept whats going off, because it's not worth the argument. I'm sorry to be blunt, but if you want to spend your life as a walkover that's your problem not mine!

I've done everything for you two. Most of my life has been built around the way you wanted me to be, the things you wanted me to do. You've spent most of it thinly veiling it around the concept that "it's what i wanted" when in fact i was never asked. Only once, America, was i properly consulted. It went wrong, it was a mistake and I have sworn to repay you for it, more times than i can count. But is that enough? no. You still have this deep down issue with the idea that, as far as your concerned, everything you've done for me has been thrown away...It's nice to see the faith in your own flesh and blood, it's nice to see the years ive put into what you wanted, the son you wanted...been worth nothing.

Oh and at a side point. I don't care if you don't agree with what is written here. It's my opinion, and as of writing this, my opinion is the one that matters, not yours. I've spent too long answering to you two to care anymore...at the age of 22 you still think you can tell me how to live my life. The way you've treated me around it makes me not care. Sure, you've showered me with a life most kids would be envious of...but that was only when you was in a good mood, when you were both content. When things went wrong, when you were both angry, annoyed, tired, upset, irritable or just plane violent.....I wouldn't have wished you on my worse enemy. Sorry, it's the truth. Take it however you want. Violently probably.

Still going? Wow, I'm impressed. Sorry about the tangent, ive wanted a place to say that for years.

Back Home, What Happens Next

So im back home, my parents are dissapointed and probably hate me. So what do i do? spend my days wallowing in self pity? no, i need to get out and make good of what i can. Within two days i decide to make good on a promise i made going into America, I had promised to play in a 7 event poker festival during my birthday. Now i couldn't, i said i would play what i could to make up for that...obviously that didn't end well...the second that the parents found out they went apeshit...apparently "things aren't going back to the way they was"...what, trying my damnedest for you wasn't enough? yeesh. So in a rage he threatened to kill me yet again..."Peter Thorpe r.i.p" was what i heard downstairs in the mix of the threats...he stormed out the house, then rang up an hour later. Saying he wouldn't come back until i had left...

That's it, thrown out of the house for essentially trying to do my friends a favour. I was distraught yet again and left the house in a rage, upset and confused i confided in my friends for a week, it was a struggle, it left me completely broke..but gave me a sense of freedom, making my own choices, sorting out uni my own way, free from the shackles of family life. It was a week i shall cherish for many years to come and Neil, Craig, Matt, Greg...if you read this i am forever in your debt, your gave me sanctuary at a time i thought the world was crashing down around me...You showed me a simple life, but a life where i could still strive to achieve.

Another piece of two faced irony coming up...my girlfriend asking what the hell had happened to be told by my mum that "it wasn't her"...funny that, because the very next day your his staunchest defender! Fucking irritating...They then decided to flip it round that everything was my fault and that it was my decision to make...the door was open they said. It was something i mulled over for an entire week...They were unwilling to compromise, i basically had to give them more control to return...in its place i got a roof over my head and food...necessity drove me back, my overdraft maxed, money being borrowed all over the place...I had little choice. Upon returning things almost went back to the way they were, i felt at peace, we had all had our little spat, and now things were on the mend...oh wait, it's never that easy!

University, The Final Twist

If you've honestly read all of this, i hope it's given you an insight into the troubles ive been facing, it needed to be long...any shorter would have not done it justice

I've spent the last few weeks trying to salvage a uni degree i had made a complete mess of by coming back. The short of it was i needed an international placement by September 13th otherwise i had to take a year out...thousands of searches and, thanks to one modules, Spanish, screwing me over (one i was supposed to fix in America, go figure), my grades are ranked as a 3rd at the moment...no placement is even tolerating 2:2's so you can imagine what comes next. I failed in the attempt...Sure, it sucks, and i'd give anything to get back on a uni course for this year. But it looks so unlikely its unreal. So thats fine, I go to the job center to sign on and get some help getting a job for the year off while trying to solve the Spanish...And thanks to the Spanish it looks like they might not even be able to help me! Oh and the parents, ever reliable, always have another part to play...as literally hours after ive left the job center, before they could even send me anything...before i could even get my CV to them...he's making demands about where i should be working! effectively going over the jobcenter's heads! I'm going to be totally blunt here. Fuck off. it's my problem, im aware of that, but im trying to fix it in the way that benefits me the most...i'm willing to accept almost any job but my only reservation is working in supermarkets...I have my own reasons for this, and they are very well founded...but this is MY problem, not his, this is not his mess to try and stick his nose in...doing so causes arguments, ive said that for years, hell he's even agreed it does...yet still does it? funny that...always seeking arguments...knowing i'll bite. Gotta Love It.

The Aftermath

This is longer than any essay i have ever written, it's half the words towards a dissertation. And im fairly confident i have not done the situation justice. The long and short is that America was a mistake, and because of that simple and honest mistake its made me question the very family im with, the people i love, the friends i trust, where i want to go in life and what i want to do with it. It's a bunch of decisions that have been long overdue, i just prayed they never collapsed quite like this. I'm sorry this was so long, im sorry for the grammar, it's far too long to go back and read again so ill just hit publish and see which way the wind blows.

But know this. I want to write the wrongs. I want to fix the problems that my mistake has caused...I only wish the people who i love would not interfere and make it worse...or more to the point, threaten to drive into something the second their son shows some emotion. Is that too much to ask? Is this The Aftermath that is really necessary?

It doesn't have to end like this...there is a new chapter still to be written.