30 Days – Day 15 – “Do without”

Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.

I’ve had a little epiphany: maybe I’m taking this a little bit too seriously. I think I’m supposed to say something quirky like it’s the littlest key ring on my car keys then give a humourous anecdote about how they’re the shiniest so I always see them when I’m in a rush to get to the beauty therapist. Or that time I sat on them and tore a wee hole in my gran’s new sofa and oh what hilarity ensued. But that’s not really me. It’s far too cheerful and it’d actually be on-topic, which is plain silly when I could deny the entire thing and shoot off in the opposite direction for a few paragraphs. I’m a rebel me.

Now that’s out of the way, I’ll begin by saying that there isn’t anyone or anything I couldn’t cope without. Certainly not possessions at least. Not that it was always that way, when we’re kids it seems that our very souls are tethered to a select few objects. One of my earliest memories was my first ever holiday. It was to Malta, and I must’ve been about three or so. One morning my Dad was taking me to the swimming pool across the road from the hotel. The sun was already up, it was roasting, and it was my first foreign holiday ever. I had this diecast fire engine (remember when toys were metal? My Thunderbird One was basically a shiv) that not even the Ark of the Covenant could compete with in terms of sentimental value. Naturally I tripped over my own feet and went sprawling across the tarmac and scraped my knee, which was sound as a pound because I was a big boy and wouldn’t shed a tear in front of my dad. Until I realised that one of the wheels of the fire engine had broken, and I hadn’t even had it very long. Heart. Broken. The tears flowed free and all these years later and I can still remember it clearly.

Growing up the TV and N64 in my room were the big things I cared. Those were my extra special christmas presents I got when I was seven or eight. Thinking about it now that probably marked the time where all my many different toys exited the room in favour of this one thing where cartridges of fun would be plugged in then put in a drawer when they weren’t getting used. It marked the change of little boy to growing up kid. Though all of my toys were handed down to my little brothers, so I still tipped them all out and played at the top of the stairs often enough. One in particular was Action Man’s nemesis Dr X (fuck, I had to look that up!) who had exposed green intestines filled with water and a few air bubbles that you could make travel through the guts if you tilted it just right. That was either Thickness’ or Goggles’ “present” to me when they were born. At least that’s what I was told. It’s hard to shop while still in the womb. It was pretty much a peace offering so I wouldn’t see them as an enemy and kill them during the night or something. The thought never crossed my mind, you can tell because they’re still here. That one was fairly important, but it’s long since disappeared, no doubt binned in a pre-christmas clear out by my mum.

Back to that N64, it was the main toy I had, and I kept up a reasonable stream of games by hiring from the library or the video shop if my dad was feeling generous. I picked up an entirely completed copy of Goldeneye with all the cheats unlocked at a car boot sale, that must have cost me weeks of my life, putting paintball and invisibility on, tasering people in the arse. Other highlights were Zelda, Blast Corps, Mario, Donkey Kong Racing and various Star Wars games. Whenever I got into trouble I’d come home to find a big empty space where it or the telly used to be. At first this was awful, but then I got used to it and began to care less and less when things got taken away.

As a result of this and me getting older my parents had to find new things to take away. Verbal was a part of the arguments anyway so they couldn’t be squeezed in any more than they were, and physical punishment was useless: they’d have had to taken a bat to me before their bruises showed through worse than the ones from rugby. Instead they moved on to pulling the power cable out of the PC, one of my main lines of communication with the outside world, then it was my CD player, headphones etc before culminating in bed covers and finally electricity itself. That was a good one in winter when it was nearly dark by the time school finished. Locking me in my room was brought up a few times before they quietly dropped it realising I wasn’t kidding about either pulling the door in to break the lock or kicking my way out. Especially when it’s a bare room literally smaller than a prison cell. No fucking thanks. The cause of all of this? You fucking name it, there was a fight started over it. I wasn’t blameless, neither were they.

It was a kind of zen lack of materialism by necessity rather than spirituality. I didn’t grow attached to things or see them as important because I knew that they could and most likely would be taken away from me. I spent a lot of time grounded as well, so I was used to spending time by myself without much more than books, pens and some paper. And a little lamp I kept a dull bulb in that ran off a different fuse (for some reason, the wiring in here is fucked) from the lights and other sockets that my parents didn’t know about. I didn’t really comprehend my comfort with being alone and not owning anything until I got kicked out after one larger than usual fight and spent a month or so at my auntie and uncle’s house. They asked me something along the lines of wasn’t I sick of coming back there every day after school and spending all night in the one room, only leaving for the toilet and dinner. I’d stayed there for three weeks by that point and hadn’t once asked to watch TV or if I could go out somewhere, I just stayed in that room to read and write. The only thing that differed from the norm was a lack of arguments and a bus to and from school instead of walking. No big regret or inconvenience, just a little change of scenery.

Rugby was important to me at that point though, it was the only time I felt free from things and that I could be certain was never more than a day or two away from the next dose. I loved it, it was a huge part of me, but like absolutely everything in life it’s largely a matter of habit, and once that’s broken it’s never quite the same again. This time it wasn’t my mum and dad that did it, but rather the school, or more specifically the head teacher. I fucking hated that cunt, and I still do. I misbehaved in school, never in any (many) fights, never vandalism, never even suspended. What I did do was not very much. School bored me senseless, and I couldn’t see much point in doing homework. I’d talk in the class, get sent out, get put on behaviour forms, get talking to’s about how I just had to apply myself etc. How exactly I came about to be in front of the headmaster I can’t remember, probably just more of the same, or I was caught doing something daft in the corridors. I never had many dealings with him, as he was hands off unless it was with a younger mouthy girl, then he liked to push them up against the wall and tower over them. That’s when he would even be in the school, prick. He was never my biggest fan, and we both knew the score. He thought I was a piece of shit and I thought he was a slimy thinly veiled sectarian wanker.

On the day in question I was in his office and he was speaking to me in that nicey nicey way that made me want to pick up his name plate and bash that fuck-shite’s head in with it. He said that for a month I wouldn’t be allowed to play rugby, and he must have seen the “nice try, cunt” look in my eye. See, I played for both the school and a club, and it was the club that was the main thing. He had sweet fuck all power over them with regard to who they could count amongst their players, so he couldn’t outright ban me. Unfortunately it wasn’t as simple as that, because the club didn’t own their own ground, they used the school’s, which was operated by a war trust, which, you guessed it, the head teacher had a big say in. So he didn’t suspend me, which would have been the more usual course of action. Instead he banned me from the grounds I’d train on, and was due to play on in a home match as well. Away games were also out, as things were tense between the school and club, they didn’t want to annoy that syphilitic mini Hitler wank stain. My school coach and PE teacher defended me, which I heard about later on from someone else. Words were said, he seemed to have gotten a bit of a bollocking, and I’ll always be grateful to him for it.

And that was another little spell broken, one more thing I convinced myself didn’t matter and I could do without anyway. Counting the season ending and me going in for surgery, I never did get to play much after that. My rugby career petered out rather than ended with a bang. One of the myriad of reasons why I never got around to going back. Is five years later too long a gap? I hate having to say “used to” rather than “do” even after all this time.

People were much the same. Primary school ended and I was thrown into a room mostly of strangers in high school, high school ended and you all know that bit, various jobs, rugby, all the other ways you meet people… It’s not like an object where you don’t care about it, just an acceptance that the vast majority of people won’t be close by for any great length of time before moving on to other things. The first and at that point hardest separation was Rose, who I eventually realised I only wanted to be with out of habit. That was like a lightbulb flicking on above you’re head moment. Ex too but to a far lesser extent as I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

The most recent was college, which I’m a bit shamed to admit. I felt like shit during the exams because I knew it was all coming to an end, and I’d had such an awesome time with a great group of people. That too was a habit. For nine months or so I’d went to the one place, gotten close with a number of people and we were all going to split up. I don’t want to sound melodramatic about it, we still see each other after all, but it was a great time, the happiest I’d been in ages, and I was sad to see it end. Look, I’m a fairly social animal after all! I’ve probably sounded really downbeat about that: “Nobody stays waaahh!” but I look at it more as making sure you try and enjoy the time you do have with people, because the fact is nobody really does stay. You can’t cling on, you can’t live in the past (despite how much I visit it here), and you can’t block yourself off from other people just to save a bit of hurt further down the line.