I don’t have too many memories of when I was a kid…  I still don’t know if I see that a a bless or a curse… Selective amnesia. My brain has cleverly blocked most my life between the ages of 6 and 14… I remember a few shards of things… clips and snippets… I remember being in protests with my parents where thousands of people participated… in Chile… during the Pinochet dictatorship… I remember people disappearing… I remember taking a can of Tear Gas on my head once and being rushed away as the Carabineros advanced on the group I was with once… I remember basecamp in Tunken and Tierra de Fe  and camping for months at the time… It was fun hunting rabbits and going for horse rides… I stil remember devotional times where over 300 people would simply go quiet and stop wherever they were doing and meditate on the day ahead at the sound of a gong first thing in the morning before getting on with whatever was planned for the day.

I reember Discipline… Almost Militar fashion discipline…

I remember Mission Trips all over south America and our Scout Group.

I remember growing up to the word Revolution being a constant part of my daily life.
I remember not being allowed to play with most kids my age and spending afternoons studying and wishing I could go outside and play. I’ve been told later that I was being groomed to take part of the leadership of the next generation of the MRJ.
I remember having all that taken away from me and having to flee the country back to Brazil where things weren’t too easy for a while…

I don’t remember much from after we went back to Brazil… not until I was about 16 years old…

Your brain is a clever little thing isn’t it?

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I decided to go out last weekend and disappear from my own life for a couple of days… It started with me wanting to do some soul digging to try and find myeslf again and being spontaneous would go a long way to rediscover who I am… I decided to head up north and after a few text messages I chucked some stuff in my rucksack, hopped in the car and I was well away before I’d second guess myself.

First step was a day out with TB and Lil’One. I picked them up as usual on Friday afternoon and asked TB what e wanted to do, with the promise that we would do WHATEVER he wanted to do then… Yeah… it would be fair to give Lil’One a voice too, but as he can’t say where he wants to go yet his vote was kinda mute. TB’s immediate response was “THE ANCHOR”, which is Liphook’s local Hungry Horse pub of choice. They have a brand new Playground setup round the back and TB was VERY keen in go playing on it while me and Lil’One rolled on the grass and he tried to run away from me laughing. I only spent 4 hours with them but being there was more than enough to make up for the shitty week that I had so far.

I dropped them and went home to sort out a few last details before taking the road and ended up having another almost sleepless night. Oh well… Guess I’m used to them already so no biggie… I took the way up heading generally north up the M40 and stopping / getting off at the country lanes around the road as it took my Fancy. Did some walking around Warwick Castle and Headed up towards Birmingham intending to get up in time to help up Sara at the Livi’s Smiles Karaoke  Fun Night she was doing that evening. I ended up going getting there earlier so wen to have Fish & Chips sitting in a park admiring the flowers and the sun… You know how long had been since I did something similar all by myself? It was peaceful to sit there and watch life pass by if nothing else… The came the evening!

Last time I went karaokeing was on last years Glee DVD release event at LuckyVoice in London… Right now I sing like shite… but it was fun anyway… And I FINALLY got to meet @Livvyssmile in person so extra super awesome bonus!! She was quite busy hosting the party, which was awesome btw… but we did get time to talk a bit! Plan was to stay until about 9pm and head up to the Darbyshire house to spend the night… Just I ended up leaving late (it was too much fun) and ended up getting at the beak district right before 2am.

Now that wasn’t quite what I had planned… I should have probably turned my phone off and not turned it on for the whole weekend and not contacted anyone else I didn’t need to… let’s put it like that…  and the piercing silent that is one of the reasons I love to get up there to rest my mind proved to be a breeding ground for the voices in my head, and believe me when I say they were scary! I have a doc’s appt this week to check on the dosage of my anti-Ds and have been out of my usual stuff since Friday morning when I had the last one in my prescription box, so having a conversation with my demons whilst enlightened a lot of stuff I had bottled up in my head and adding up to a few of my fears and nightmares being so close to happen you can imagine how much of a terrifying night for me…

Then I received an email that managed to throw me overboard first thing in the morning…

I genuinely felt it was the end of the road for me… And the voices went crazy in my head… they were having one hell of a field day… I had taken a decision and the situation was perfect for me to execute what I had in mind. I was alone and would have no one to interrupt me… In my head I had reasons and excuses and well… Everyone would be better off if I’m not around, I thought… I made preparations and sent a text message to the one person in my mind. I didn’t need to say much in it… just to make sure she got to my computer because there were instructions and a last message for her, my sons and my family… And to tell her one last time that I love her and then turn my phone off, she’d probably take a couple of hours to read the message anyway… Only she replied within seconds of me sending it… Long story short… I couldn’t do it…

The weird thing is that I don’t know if I felt grateful for having had my mind changed for me or if I felt angry of myself for being so pathetic and not going ahead with it… One thing I knew for sure… I didn’t want to spend the rest of the weekend alone… I didn’t trust myself to spend the rest of the weekend alone.

I made my way West and am now taking refuge with Livi… And have had an amazing time with her and Laura who also happened to be up here seeing her for the Nantwich JAzz Festival. Yes… I might have made some poor choices like sending TXT messages and twitting whilst slightly inebriated… But it did the job and being with friends helped me find one of the things I’ve been missing the most… my friends… And I have been neglecting them far too much for the past couple of years…

And for the Record… @mrsteepot gives AWESOME hugs! And looks VERY hot in corsets and I got to take some pics of her using one and one with a red polka dress and the photos look AWESOME! I’ll finish editing them and will post them soon (Don’t get Jealous Hales… you know you look even hotter in corsets and in any other way… And the be honest here… you rock the pregnant look… )

Yeah… my head is still quite screwed up and scary place to be… But I can see some reason to be… I can see why I should be here… and I can see why I NEED to find myself…

I have also learned that searching and trying to learn more about me won’t help…

Only Way to find out who you are is BEING who you are…

That is the ONE thing no one can take from you…

So BE YOURSELF!!! No matter what others think of you… In the end, it’s only you you have to to answer to on that…

The race is long… And in the end it is only against yourself…

Ah… one last thing… Wear Sunscreen!