Independence!

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Independence is probably the most important word in my life. I have always been very independent of thought and action, ever since I can remember.  I dislike relying on anyone! I think this probably stems all the way back to my childhood. Like most children in the 1970s, I was given very little, so never took anything for granted.  As a child, I always felt I had less than others, especially, when I was at school, observing what others had.  There used to be an element of jealousy within me, but in the main, I accepted I had less than others. I grew up on a small council estate, and spent many happy years here.  Council estates were very different back in the 1970s, before things changed, and to be honest, none of us really had a huge amount of money.  There was no competition to wear the best designer clothes and nobody really actually cared anyway!

As I got older and grew up, I soon realised I was different from other kids.  From the age of about eleven I was also dealing with puberty and issues surrounding my sexuality.  In 1982, it was very difficult to come out and deal with your issues, especially when the Government of the day, had introduced laws, that had made it very difficult for people like me, to discuss how they were feeling, with anyone in authority. During this period, I was extremely lonely and spent much of the time on my own, wrestling with my own thoughts, emotions and feelings.  

My self-reliance was born from the time.  When one spends a lot of time on one's own, one does tend to escape into one's own World.  non alignment of thought and outlook, became the norm.  As a person, I became introverted and inward looking, which was better than the reality I was dealing with at the time.  Whilst those I went to school with, were enjoying their childhood, experiencing all the things, kids should experience, I was growing up, faster than anyone knew.  

I left home as soon as I was able.  I needed to be who I wanted to be and finally be allowed to express who I was.  Life in the early 1990s was very different to it is now. There was still a lot of prejudice against homosexuals, especially, when like me, you had grown up in a small market town in Hampshire, where everyone knew everyone else, gossiped frequently and backstabbed, given the chance. The people that lived there were extremely traditional and really didn't have a clue about the bigger picture and the wider World.  Homosexuality existed there, as much as anywhere else, but it just wasn't ever mentioned.  My Grandparents on my Mother's side were particularly right wing, and had made their views on gay people very clear, so the get out clause for me, was University.  

At the time I had a good job, working for the Civil Service.  I decided to give up my position and go to University, not because I wanted to go, but because it was the easiest option, for me to gain self-determination, away from my home town, which had played a large part in my isolated life, from the age of eleven.  I hated my home town with a passion and everyone who lived there.  My sexuality and lack of understanding, really had nothing to do with  where I lived, but it had everything to do with other people's attitudes, at that time, which were very different and completely homophobic.

​University was the happiest time of my life.  I was finally free to be who I wanted to be, meet similar, like minded people and grow as a person.  University did teach me to be an individual. I had very little money and even less help from family during my time there.  I was paying for everything myself, even when I had nothing.  In many respects, I had cut a lot of my family off and didn't ask for help.  The memories of such a traumatic childhood, meant I just wanted to forget that period of my life.

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When you have very little and no one to full back on, you do learn quite quickly to become independent of mind, you have too,  it is a matter of survival! This was the time I met my current partner. Darrell was Australian, living thousands of miles away from home, so like myself, had to learn to become independent. His mother was helping him fund his trip, but essentially we were on our own as a couple.  

To be honest, we have never really had an awful lot, financially. Whatever we did have, we worked hard for, very hard and others saw that.  Our aptitude and brief periods of success were always interrupted by the bad elements in our life, the people who saw us, finally doing something for ourselves, realised we had no one else to rely on, so used our situation to gain respect and love from us.  My liberty, that I so craved and wanted, had become the reason I was failing in life.  standing alone and having no family for support, had made myself and Darrell a target for those, who wanted what we had achieved, no matter how little.  These terrible individuals offered the one thing I did not have, unconditional love, rather like a family gives a child, which I had not experienced in many years.  I took their love as literal, they used it as a way to manipulate for material gain.

For the twenty years Darrell and I have been together, this has been the story of our life.  Our independence, has been used by those who were unable to have their own freedoms, either through apathy, laziness or thinking the World owes them something. On numerous occasions our life together, as a couple, has been under threat from people, who quite simply are manipulators, who through their own faults, have to use others to gain, what they are unable to achieve themselves.

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So here we are in 2016, 21 years after Darrell and I met and we are now living in Spain, having made the decision to leave the UK, after our life together once again became threatened.  Other people had played their part in trying to destroy what we had achieved over our lifetime together.  We had given a free roof over others heads, money when they needed it, help getting a job, our love and unconditional respect, at the expense of our own independence, because we bothered to care.  On January 31st 2016, we finally said goodbye to the takers and made a vow to actually live our life for us now and no one else.  Don't get me wrong, I am still mindful that others are and continue to abuse our trust, but, I am also very aware that I have limits and will not allow anyone to take advantage of me again.  

Jamie is one of the few people, with us in Spain, who has never taken anything, and remains a good and trusted friend,  There are great people out there and in reality, I have probably lost some valuable friendships, because of previous distrust of others, but I have to remember all the time, not to return to the way things were.  If I do that, once again the independence that I so crave, would be under threat.  With Spain now our home and very little options left, I have to hang on to my freedom and make sure I am never again at the mercy of the worst people I have ever had the misfortune to come across!

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