Here from someone else's memory is so vivid. No girl is to speak unless she is on fire or fainting. Nobody ever spoke. This is a very old person. With a very old memory. It is as vivid now as just now. The dogs bark, I go outside. A very large bat is circling over the garden like a blackbird.
Somehow it happens that insecurity reduces it. It is the self image of it that goes. Of the And then insecurity leads to isolation and by that shortly getting good or very good in a job or walking over paving stones. It leads to growing in the self image and so it goes down to go up and that is how it balances.
And when later by isolation and job being good at it is grown. And to be good takes a great deal of time and so it is soon seen how inadequate everything else is. Then it falls away to nothing. And being good is despised and it all ferments. Then it drains away and all the foul fluids are swept clear. It is nothing. For so long it is nothing. And then comes the chance to be a genius or to die. I know all this because of who I am. It is in the nature of identity to know.
Homosexuality, insecurity, I am not close. I have never been close so. This is my childhood. Homosexuality is insecurity but that is really too simple. The insecurity is strongest first. For me it may be that insecurity growing away becomes homosexuality. These are not really cause and effect. That is too simple. They are more lock and key but mostly door and doorway. One leads through the other bars the way so there is balance.
That was first to be seen. It is when the self image is of inadequacy. I remember Anthony and so not being in what was happening then. I remember that. That is inadequacy in the mind to be so. That all started very early. The soonest I can remember was before I was five a very long time. There were cherry trees that were somehow forbidden but never really understanding that. It was only vague. There were some candytuft plants that were in someone else and what was in me strongly envy because I was still very much in me my mother's. That is a very pale but strength. It is possible that as early as that is built in me plants by that. Maybe after even so many years I am trying to make up for that not being me. And even now I do not like at all annuals and have never grown candytuft. This was weak and is so rapidly stronger. Then there were some grape pips. Those were planted in real hope which was strong. It was probably after it became candytuft but it was very strong then and it still is. There were grape pips and they grew it was purple flowers and for a long time I was very happy and so much and so proud in me for this. And then mother laughed. She laughed and it was real laugh and very much hurt. So much it was many years later. It was anger slowly inside. How dare she it to plant over the top. Now of course it is only a Campanula and even now I hate them all of them. This is the thing that insecurity does in me it is so very strong. I remember lupins. Only lupins. I think they were mine though they were Russell lupins too. I think they were mine and there was success but so small by the side of Campanulas. Then there is pansies. Small wild pansies which I wanted to be part of but was not allowed. Because of that it being mothers of course. And still today for me they are never more than pretty to look at. Underneath it is still very real to hate pansies. Even the words become mixed it is so hard and so long ago. And David says that it is a very feminine flower. Here I am a homosexual many years later, and it was not much longer after that I began to feel that. Even though then it is not fully understood still it is there and recognized looking back. Ten after the move but also before it so. I was about seven because it started with Jo. Of who it is I remember only so like. First there is a skipping rope. Then a grey poodle getting fatter. And then there are some cacti. And then because of that the cacti grew in Liz and because of that cacti grew in me and however good in me it was it always seemed better in Liz. That is how it is in insecurity and why. It is probably why in Liz it is always different to in me. So later it came to be cacti in me I was about eleven or less. They were to grow but for me it was not interest at all really just trying by the same way to build the same. So there are a few roots of things with words have to mixed. Perhaps that was in part wanting to be some autonomy being not the word it is so adult but that was it. To find something of self control in me. To be in me some self respect at all which there was none. Insecurity eats like that. It all starts smaller and gets bigger. So it happened. I feel its strongly now in wanting some independence really which is still in me in liking to be solitary and also becomes isolation by choice. That it was wanting possibly for only to get attention more to be more individual. To feel to be disregarded by being so close. This feels much so here. That may also be true of homosexuality. To choose a strongly noticeable path however it may be hard to hope to be strongly noticed. Here it is all insecurity and feeling not simply to be loved enough but more to be simply disregarded. It is also here I think found how to cry on the inside. For me that was to call for attention now it seems. Then it was just inescapable. And to do that was given strong praise quite unexpected. This was done to positively reinforce my act. But in me there was no trust at all of those people. It was to me seeming odd to act so and at any moment if I get close to change. There was no trust just unease at it. For me that was the reason I never repeated until much later. Much later I decided to keep a budgie and it was all set up and when it was found out there was no other defence but to stand up and say so and put it to be. To be yes it was part of me so go on, destroy it. I have always been strong for animals of all kinds. Mother has always been strongly against. Which influenced which who knows. It was so. When I was seven I got a rabbit and there was just too much responsibility to be seven it was all too difficult so it was all bad. I would not have it so but the change would be parents not rabbit or me. It is a thankless task to be a parent. It is a parent's choice and that is the price and it has to be accepted. It has to be otherwise it is not fair to choose without the consequences. Anyway the rabbit was always used repressively. So it seemed. Nasturtiums a very strong for good in me until recently. Why that is who knows. The memory is gone even though it was before seven. Later nasturtiums were very strong in Michael and so for me now there is pain in them but that will not go on forever but the good will. Last year I grew nasturtiums for Michael and then he left and I had to sell them to somebody for almost nothing because I couldn't keep them and I couldn't throw them away. That is pain. So there was a child and being rational now I can say it was attention seeking because of insecurity and because of being a child. And there may be the same still in homosexuality. It could be so. And perhaps there is something of that feeling in needing to be outstanding in plants and finally been noticed over Liz who even now feels to be over, but is clearly only in very little in plants. That is insecurity. And the birds. When I was recently in the last few years very depressed and seeing no point at all then it was only the birds that saved me anything. It is strange that of all the animals it is birds the mother hates most of all. And I have known that for a long time. When I was eight a house Martin baby fell from a nest and was fed flies and bacon until it died the next morning. And before that happened even I knew mother would not stand it and had to fight for it not just to be put out of sight where it could die and not be frightening. So I knew well long before that about birds.
So it is strange to see that all of the things that are in me started a very long time before and were all set by about seven or eight. Before Severn and the move of the house mother was in bed and Painting a bridge that I think came from Tar Steps I do not really remember but I think. Even now I have to paint. It had a very strong effect on me to see this done. This is a form of magic to build self esteem and esteem in others. It is probably still so in me. And even now I will not except for very good reasons do representative work at all. Except the birds one Christmas painted. And some orchids. Now I see why the recently painted olive grove I like and do not like. It is in style and colour reminding me of that bridge painting. It seems now to have been green and grey beige. These are the colours only once and often still I wear. Now for instance it is beige. There may be nothing in it or it may be why.
This is all because of insecurity and needing answers to rely on which is why it is so with intelligent people.
Jen was very strong. What it would be now to be charismatic. Also he lived by all of those dogs and ducks and chickens that I must have been very envious. And he did not really care to be lucky in that. It just was. So that was envy really. And here again it is to be something with someone who seems something when I do not feel at all to be anything. Inadequacy is a long word. Jen was anyway all of those things that are in people that I now fall for. There was no sexuality at all in that just envy really but it did build patterns of what I now look for. It is to cope gracefully and naturally and it not at all to be a bother.
Mother wants to know if for me it was all homosexuality. It is all together but also frustration and fear and that blackness. It is all here together I remember that there were hazelnuts. Perhaps it is all insecurity and feeling as an outsider always and wanting to be invited in. It was certainly often like that in me. And no self confidence to put myself in. Just shyness which is socially acceptable terror. It is perhaps all of these things together. And trying to make a mark. I have a brother Mark who I always saw down on and he was never a threat because to me he was just nothing and that is still how we are I think. He avoids me because of that I expect. For me is nothing. Trying to make a mark. He only slips in here by an accidental pun.
Yet still insecurity tries to escape being noticeable. That was how it was acted out of school. To be little. That was how home and school were opposite. It was a rapid swing of contrast and a balance. To seek attention and to elude notice. A balance. Maybe a balance that made it possible. I remember being fourteen and lying on the bed and wanting to commit suicide and not knowing how to do so or a think I would have done so. Possibly only balance held it together. Then again perhaps this was just guilt and puberty. By that time guilt rose in me for everything. I felt guilty if a car crashed and I even saw it. That was how it was. Perhaps even now in me that is why I need always to help people. It is guilt rising in me when I see a problem happen by me, not the guilt of refusal, for that has never been possible. It is guilt for the whole world being not perfect being my fault by not being perfect all good. It is all trying to make up for the past. I told Peter that I may get strong in writing or burn up. That is how it is.
At school it is to have no self respect at all. There was the first start of real homosexuality shortly after the move. A few doors down was Graham. And the rest of the name had gone but it is now back as Graham. And he could cope in self confidence. One so it was dead fish to catch a weasel but unsuccessfully. And even though it was less than ten I expect or so he had a splendid body. That is how early it was so I can remember it to look at. He was also handsome as a ten year old can be.
Having no self regard at all of school is to try and force or buy an image of such to be acceptable for making friends at all.
That was where friends came really together for a short time which is fairly blank to remember that I was also suicidal at the time so it is hardly surprising I don't. Looking back with it all turning over I despise that school. Some of that carried over to the parents who sent me there and never trouble to understand the daily pain of being a victim in a public school. Humiliation and having no self respect at all. The emptiness. That which destroys the joy of youth. Even now I cannot let go enough to enjoy my youth, even now I see it gone. Still it is all repressed. To become suicidal. Well it was at school that I learnt how it all was to repress it. If by then I was homosexual for whatever reason. Even for just being me. By then it was all being repressed and strongly so and I knew something only a bit of it. But repression is not at all positive and this is why later I came to consider death.
One day it started to come out of being inadequate by becoming a patrol leader at scouts. At the time it was not any more than expected but it was a start. Then to be a venture scout, then a cub assistant then an assistant scoutmaster at Reading. It all grew from this the only thread of self esteem. It was building self confidence from other people listening to me. Later at Reading I was able to drop it all by having no religion in me and understanding in part to be homosexual and that being inappropriate. But also perhaps was the knowing at Reading I was needed and being stronger still by rejecting them. There is no blame for other people in any of this because I do exactly the same things. It is in all of us I expect. And so slowly being able to cope with life.
Last time I wrote I avoided all of these now here it is. I expect it will be more. It is not all worked through yet.
Today felt to start very early. It was to take some parents to be sexed. Lope is getting old and disjoint slightly now. It can feel difficult in me. It is partly pain and partly denying it to happen. The water used to train in Dave's garden so he built a wall and now the road floods 6 inches deep all the time.
The sexing was nice. I was six out of eight right in sex but I wanted to be all right. That is inadequacy needing that sort of perfection. They are all nice people. Even to some extent the man in the pet shop who had his birds sexed. It was nice to see him so awkward in that house. It is very good of Mark by making it so welcoming. It is very clever and good and I have much respect for that. It all took and nice long time. And when I got back here my neighbours were chasing a cow around my garden to get it out and not all the damage but all the expectation of damage. And I haven't even seen any yet but I did not meet that. It had jumped over the wall because they do not maintain it to keep their cows in. My plants never wander over. I could be polite and help but nothing I could do at all could make be pleased to see them.
Then Roz came and briefly I showed her snowdrops and she talked about herself but she doesn't really see snowdrops because she react against anything anyone else shows her. And I could not really see her because I was too close to here and me. So it was just nice to see her, no more. We ate a packet of Japanese rice crackers. And almost the last thing was about being old.
People but of course they do. People believe that growing old is a part of living, but in fact living is the sideshow to growing old.