Close Your Eyes and Explore The Darkness...

Searching my mind for the memories and feelings I felt whilst away on camp and making use of those same thoughts does lead me to a dark place. I'm not sure I mean a depressive state. It's more like a character actor. I don't claim to be one, not at all. It's more I have to go back and transport myself to the memories that I know still exist. Some of which I haven't explored for many years. Well, since they happened. they do remain so vivid.

It's worrying, funny and a surprise the mix of emotions that I feel when I think about everything. I think about my situation in the UK, back in 2004. I think about Uni. Everything that happened there, all of the experiences. The people, the sense of urgency. The fear. Being lost. Being alone. Not knowing if what I considered important was actually all that important. I can obviously look back now and understand that most or much of it was completely irrelevant. Why did you take yourself so seriously? Why did you react that way, when there was no reason to?  At the same time it's nice to feel now that I know who I am. That's until I look back on this in 15 years and think ' My god, you didn't know anything!'

Camp, really did have an impact on me and it wasn't necessarily all that positive. I wouldn't change it now, obviously because it's shaped who I am today but trying to grow mentally and emotionally in a foreign country with effectively strangers was more alien to me than I could possibly have imagined.
I'm trying to make that evident in my writing. Dylan is a reflection of me, a representation. He is the person that I thought I was and who I thought I was portraying to others at the time. I used to think I was funny. I considered myself a sarcastic Bill Hicks kind of fella. I used to smoke a lot. I wanted to emulate him in most situations.

 I've looked back at photos of myself. I intend to include them here. There are so many that I can't include because they have the kids we were taking care of and I don't want to have anyone 'real' ( other than me ) included because they are 'real/living' people and I haven't asked permission etc. They probably all have jobs, wives, girlfriends and certainly lives of their own. That could get messy and because the novel isn't arguably a gleaming example of a positive experience. Many situations have been made more dramatic, I don't want any branding or identification of features of the camp to 'name' it. Like I continue to explain. It is fiction. I wish only the best for any of the guys that we were mentoring. They were honestly, no trouble.

Some picture I look way way too thin. That reminds me of a time when I took weight far too seriously, much like I potentially took myself. I had this habit of pouting like Ian Brown. It became my staple for anyone with a camera. Also, let's not argue but I think it's fair to say that I clearly invented the 'selfie'.

There are so many triggers of things that I thought I had forgotten. I'm trying where possible to include all of the elements.

The last picture, is that of my bedroom from when I was a teenager. As you can see, I liked movies. All movies. They still inspire me. The picture is only of two walls. That room had four. They were all covered in VHS. I remain a massive fan of VHS, like I've mentioned before for the physicality of it. The nostalgia. Same with vinyl and 8 tracks! Nick Hornby had it right, when he implied that you can tell a lot about people by the movies and music they surround themselves with. What I find more disturbing about that picture, is not the obsession or vast amount of videos. It's the gaps on the shelves. That means my brother would have borrowed them and certainly not returned them or even bothered to rewind them. Ahhhhh, the good old days!

Until Next Time...

Do Good Things