Thank you all for your comments and emails. I didn’t realise quite how many people I know read this blog.
After a weekend of due contemplation, I have decided to return to this blog. I originally left thinking I had said all I could about myself, and the process I had done. I was wrong. I cannot promise that my entries will be of the same frequency, length, or entertainment levels, (intentional or otherwise) but I shall do my best.
I am entering a huge period of change – and I am afraid. The next few months are going to provide huge challenges and tests of the ‘new me’, and I am suffering with enormous apprehension, borderlining on dread.
But I’d like to start ‘Back And To The Future 2.0’ with something else.
A good few years ago, when I was just a little boy lost in the world, I was a full time bartender – a perfect job for someone with as much false bravado as I. I worked across London’s clubs and bars, most notably in the relatively-famous Ice Bar. (More info here: http://www.belowzerolondon.com/icebar/)
It was here I met a friend of mine, who we’ll call JL. JL and I became fast friends, she a girl version of what I wanted so badly to be – free spirited, a rock chick of the highest order, impossibly cool, and able to live a life like no other, despite never having any money. JL epitomised the ‘free’ way of life, working as a waitress/bartender to keep her with just enough money to put in her little car to drive to wherever it was she needed to go. I loved her, hated her and was oh-so-jealous of her in equal measures.
On what I think was her 24th birthday, and being that I wanted to show off – I was occasionally like that once upon a time – I organised to throw JL a birthday party at my house with the people we worked with. A great time was had by all. The downstairs part of my house was nearly destroyed, and my relationships with most of the people I worked with was destroyed when I threw them all out of my house at 3am, absolutely terrified that the carnage would continue.
JL and I slept together for the first time that night. For about the next six months, between icy glares from my co-workers, and a thin line between people resenting me for living in a huge house whilst working as a bartender, and people just hating me for being an arse that night, JL and I became what I guess were sort-of ‘fuck buddies’. There were no booty calls, no random meetings, just sometimes, we’d go out together, and sometimes, we’d end up having sex.
I think I liked JL because she bought out a side of me I so wanted to expose, but was so scared and self conscious of. With JL, I was caught up in the party world, still dangerously close enough to drugs and booze, without really partaking, that I felt ‘part of it’. We’d do crazy shit, like one night, after working until 1am, going to Kabaret (http://www.kabaretsprophecy.com/) until 4am, and then checking into the Sanderson Hotel, drunk off our arses, trying to pretend we’d missed a train.
I genuinely loved JL. Of course, now, with hindsight, I see a great deal of why our friendship developed the way it did, and why I ultimately acted the way I did with her, but there is no question in my mind that I loved her. She and I would never be ‘together’, but I honestly thought the world of her.
Unfortunately, our friendship ended. I was pushing and pushing, forever seeing how far I could take things, including ways I don’t particularly want to recall. Things ended when I got some tickets to a Red Hot Chilli Peppers concert for her and her friend Amber, and then decided I wanted to charge her for them. I was looking for excuses. I acted like a prick. We went our separate ways.
My time at The Ice Bar was further tainted by my relationship with my manager, a guy we’ll call Dan. Dan and I didn’t get on from day 1, for a number of reasons, but mostly I suspect it was because I have a tendency to come across as an arrogant southern posh prick, and he was a no-pretensions northerner – from Leeds originally, if I remember correctly. Not that I’d like to generalise about people from certain regions, but there were no real ‘personality’ clashes, per se.
The point of bringing Dan into this story is this – about two weeks ago, I got a friend request from him on Facebook out of nowhere.
I left it for a day. I really didn’t know what to say. Eventually, I wrote to him, still not accepting the request, saying – ‘Dan, thanks for the request. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but you didn’t like me when you knew me – what gives?’
He replied, apologising if he wasn’t particularly nice, I did the same, and we haven’t spoken since. Of course, I looked at his profile, and there she was looking out at me – JL.
I have done much work, and spent a great deal of time, apologising these last 4 months. I have made up with people, reconnected, and built and re-built a number of bridges. I took me 3 days to work out what to email JL.
I apologised profusely. Explained what had happened. Explained what had happened since. I pressed ‘send’, and felt a genuine sensation of panic about the torrent of abuse I felt I was sure to receive. I was wrong. The sincerity in my voice was apparent in my email, erm… apparently.
JL forgave me for the way I acted, and accepted my apology. And now, for the first time in 4 years, I am meeting my former best friend, and one of the few people I have ever loved with any sincerity and I am ABSOLUTELY FUCKING TERRIFIED. It’s there, casual coffee between two old friends on Thursday afternoon, and it is just galloping towards me – incessant and unrelenting.
Why am I scared? Well, here’s the thing: what they never tell you is that quite a lot of the time, people get into a certain way of life, no matter how destructive it is, because it’s fucking good fun. Why did I ever do drugs? Because I fucking loved them. Why did I so love indulging in the lifestyle my friendship with JL afforded me? Because I fucking loved it. And now? I guess I’m afraid that she’ll take a look at me – a good 15lbs heavier, quieter, more humble (seriously) and more weary and war-beaten than I ever was – and be disappointed. And, I’m worried that the new me won’t quite know what to do when looking into the mirror of my past.
And maybe I’m worried that I am opening a door I have no control over closing.
