If I had my life all over again, would I do anything different? I’m sure you’ve heard that question being asked of all sorts of people, even yourself. I’ve certainly asked it myself and until recently answered that there is not much I wouldn’t have done different. But that’s not true, unless I was afforded the knowledge, experience and (the few) skills I have learned along the way. And if I had my time again, which of course I couldn’t, I wouldn’t be born with all that knowledge, experience and skills, would I?
I understand that thinking down these lines is utterly pointless, but it didn’t stop me lying in bed last night, in the early hours, with all these ideas rushing around in my head. How different would things have been if I had been brought up by a ‘normal’ family, which is to say a mother and father in the same house, instead of solely by a mother who, being a Dutch migrant with only a passing understanding of how things worked in England? Instead of making all kind of decisions at school for which I was hopelessly unprepared and incapable, would an element of guidance outside of school have helped?
That I left Briz (Brislington) School with barely any more knowledge and skills than I started with can’t have helped, but then I had no one at home who could have helped me with any of the subjects, unless Dutch was on curriculum. And even then, maybe not. Even though my mum was Dutch, and as a child I could speak the language fluently, she never told me to read or write it. How fucking weird is that? And the only subject, English, at which I was half-decent – I won’t say better than that because my mangled grammar shows it was less than decent – was almost entirely down to a sense of feel, instinct and one brilliant Portuguese English teacher.
If I’m living my life again, my dad’s still not there and my mum is still a stranger in a strange land. I’m still going mad at the age of 12 with awful panic attacks and night terrors and I’m still muddling along at school, ending up with crap qualifications, not having a clue what to do with my life and I would wager, if such a wager would possible, bearing in mind I don’t bet, that I would still end up where I am, having wasted another life.
My wasted life is mainly my own fault because I’ve had long enough to put it right. The actions of others, particularly earlier in life – say the first 25 years – had a profound and damaging effect on me and I see no point in hiding that. It’s why I don’t look back with happiness at family life, such as it was, and it’s all I can do to avoid having very negative thoughts about those who shaped me into what I am today, someone I thoroughly dislike; always have disliked and always will.
Depression doesn’t help and maybe it’s a cause, a symptom of life’s poor pageant. If I had the chance to do it all over again, I wouldn’t. Not in a million years.
