Too close to home

Note: this is actually an edited version of the original. i had more details in it, which i actually published, but only for a couple of minutes. i'm republishing this without the details. it's very very personal to me, and as you will read later in the post, not many, not even my family knew this happened.

i just watched a movie called "borstal boy" and i couldn't finish it. it was a good movie, but the story took a turn that i was not expecting at all. in fact, it surprised me, or actually jolted me because it hit very much close to home for me. i guess to put this post in context, i need to elaborate a bit on the moview, so there may be some spoilers. so, stop reading now if you don't want the movie spoiled for you.

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the movie is based on a book that i'd read. i wasn't aware of it until it was brought up in a series of tweets with a twitter friend. the book is autobiographical, about brendan behan's time spent in a borstal. he was put there for his failed attempt at bombing a hotel establishment in england. whilst there, his stance on the english softened. the movie was based very very loosely on the book, where charlie milwall, an english sailor had a more prominent part. in the movie, brendan and charlie developed a romantic relationship. in the end, charlie was released from borstal and joined the h.m.s. prince of wales, which was supposed to have been sunk in singapore (this was historically inaccurate). there were no survivors.

whilst this part seemed generic, an aspect made it much closer to me. i lost someone that i loved (i still do) and all i have left of him is his pendant. what we had was perfect, and i was devastated when he was taken away from me. i wore the pendant for years, swearing not to ever take it off, but a friend of mine convinced me last year to start letting it go. i finally did take it off, but it was really more ceremonial than anything. i still feel something.

and whilst watching borstal boy today, the emotions came flooding back again. i've only told this to two other people. my family do not know that this happened to me. maybe i should have. i was a mess for the two years that followed. it is obvious from writing this that i've not completely gotten over the experience. i really do not want to, not because i'm a glutton for drama. that is absolutely not the case. i hate drama. what i had with HIM was life-changing, and an experience like that is something that one should hold on to. to this day, while it still hurts a bit, i genuinely feel that i am proud to have known him, and to have known that HE was mine.

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whilst writing my previous post, a spam quarantine report summary came up in my inbox. these were the ones picked up by the anti-spam service.

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i don't know whether to be annoyed or laugh. i wonder what people 500 years from now will think of us when they discover all these digital archaeological "treasures"? lol

I've got rose-tinted glasses on

i will be moving to a different place, still in brighton/hove area, so not comparable to the other moves i've done. it's interesting that since my family left the London, UK to live in the US, i've not stayed more than five years at any one place. I lived in northern California for three years, in southern California for four and half years, in the midwestern US for five years, the Rockies for five years, and now back to the UK where I've been for almost three years.

whilst the travelling and moving had been interesting, at least with regards to exposure to different things, like culture, people, and surroundings, there have also been some drawbacks to it - mainly the establishment of long-term relationships with friends and lovers, if you will. a friend of mine, who i've been lucky to actually call my best friend for the past three years once mentioned that for an average person it takes at least seven years to develop a deeper friendship with someone. i'm not sure if he was just making this up to discourage me from moving back to the UK, or if it was something he actually observed empirically. but i think the main point to be taken from what he said is that it takes time to cultivate a true friendship, one with meaning, and one that you will not hesitate to defend or preserve. and whilst i would like to think that i'd made those types of friends in the relatively brief time of stay in a number of places, i now catch myself wondering if those friends feel the same way about the friendships we have. if you believe the idea that my friend came up with, then i could easily attribute these doubts that i have to the less-than-optimal time spent cultivating the friendship. to be honest though, i'm not sure i can point to this as the main contributor to my doubts. i think it's more me. i say "think", because i'm not at all certain, but i see how it could be me.

i can easily blame one thing. i'm a workaholic, plain and simple, and this cuts into any quality time i may spend with friends. i realise that i can only get out what i put in. cliché, but it clearly applies here. the other reason, maybe, is that i'm very naive about people at times, almost child-like when it comes to meeting people that i feel could be good friends. i react by instinct, and immediately see who i will be comfortable being around with. i've been burned by it, but i don't think it's really made me more wary. i guess you can say that i've got rose-coloured glasses on. i don't think this is really so bad, but i'm sure you can see how it would contribute to my situation.

now, how do i feel about growing apart? i've moved so much that i've really become somewhat numb to it, but meeting new people has always been and still is exciting for me. it doesn't mean that i don't get affected by the growing apart bit. i still feel that initial disappointment/hurt, but i just deal with them better. and one way is to try to convince myself that it's their loss and not mine, though i'm not entirely sure about that. LOL. i've got my sets of good and bad qualities that come out in different combination at time. the key is to not let all the bad qualities come out at the same time. i can tell you that you would witness the most unbearable human being. haha!

so, will i ever have meaningful friendships? i'd like to think that i have and that i still have them. as for the new ones i've made, we'll just see where it goes. i'll just need to find the few that are worth nurturing. how do i find them? instincts, i guess. they've not really let me down yet. :)