Favourite year/s in your life/milestones

Ages 13 to 15. Right up until the Poland trip when everything started to go wrong. That was a good time. In a dorm full of rowdy teenagers; girls straddling their boyfriends on the beds, The lot of us frolicking on the beach. The girls in bikini’s splashing water all around. Baking sun.

I had no idea that the 2 Church youth groups I was a part of were about to rip themselves apart. Life, youth, was an exciting game and I was expecting to be invited to join in at any moment.

my PhD years were pretty good too and the nearly half a year beforehand just after I graduated. Finding that bunch of weirdos in Anime sock made my life feel so much more real. I felt so abandoned by life and I found people who weird like me. I started to find what it felt like to have a social life. Started going out and doing things, nightclubs, trips away. People started inviting me to birthday parties and to join in with stuff. I had interesting conversations about science and bizarre what if scenarios. I went to my first anime convention in several after that during that period of time some of the best trips of my life. I massively grew in confidence I started sharing my sense of humour with people shamelessly and feeling like at least some of them enjoyed it.

I remember towards the end of university sneaking out to go and see a questionable movie my parents wouldn’tve approved of on my own. that seemed adventurous. By the time I’d been in Anime soc for a few years I was going to places on my own where I was greeted by sights and sounds that would probably make the mods uncomfortable if I repeated them here.

don’t get me wrong the space between 16 and when I entered university was not entirely dreadful. there were some good moments and some formative experiences. The same could be said for the degree itself. But there was so much pain and trauma with the way life was  falling apart and then the way I couldn’t come to terms with it that it kind of overshadowed everything else.

before my teens I have to wonder if I was ever really happy. I mean in the sense of there being like a happy year. there were obviously happier times. trips on holiday to sunny Weymouth. Sat in the air-conditioned library reading the Encyclopedia. Playing mega drive. Laser tag for your birthday. Ordering rare technical books at the library. But a lot of this was bright spots in a Panorama of mundanity and loneliness.

Ages 13 to 15. Right up until the Poland trip when everything started to go wrong. That was a good time. In a dorm full of rowdy teenagers; girls straddling their boyfriends on the beds, The lot of us frolicking on the beach. The girls in bikini’s splashing water all around. Baking sun.

I had no idea that the 2 Church youth groups I was a part of were about to rip themselves apart. Life, youth, was an exciting game and I was expecting to be invited to join in at any moment.

my PhD years were pretty good too and the nearly half a year beforehand just after I graduated. Finding that bunch of weirdos in Anime sock made my life feel so much more real. I felt so abandoned by life and I found people who weird like me. I started to find what it felt like to have a social life. Started going out and doing things, nightclubs, trips away. People started inviting me to birthday parties and to join in with stuff. I had interesting conversations about science and bizarre what if scenarios. I went to my first anime convention in several after that during that period of time some of the best trips of my life. I massively grew in confidence I started sharing my sense of humour with people shamelessly and feeling like at least some of them enjoyed it.

I remember towards the end of university sneaking out to go and see a questionable movie my parents wouldn’tve approved of on my own. that seemed adventurous. By the time I’d been in Anime soc for a few years I was going to places on my own where I was greeted by sights and sounds that would probably make the mods uncomfortable if I repeated them here.

don’t get me wrong the space between 16 and when I entered university was not entirely dreadful. there were some good moments and some formative experiences. The same could be said for the degree itself. But there was so much pain and trauma with the way life was  falling apart and then the way I couldn’t come to terms with it that it kind of overshadowed everything else.

before my teens I have to wonder if I was ever really happy. I mean in the sense of there being like a happy year. there were obviously happier times. trips on holiday to sunny Weymouth. Sat in the air-conditioned library reading the Encyclopedia. Playing mega drive. Laser tag for your birthday. Ordering rare technical books at the library. But a lot of this was bright spots in a Panorama of mundanity and loneliness.