Insecurities

How is it possible that I cannot clear my mind, ever? Why I cannot let myself go of this past that I want to forget?

Over the years I lost complete touch with myself and thank God I am finding my soul once again.

When I was younger, in between my shit teenage years and my nowilloflive years, I did have some good years. It was a time of independence, freedom and friends. This was no doubt due to my lack of regular contact with was left of my family.

I had a good job that helped my independence, I felt I was making a career of a job that was not really chosen from me, as it was mother that decided for me. But now I was able to see that just may be it was not at all a bad place to be. I was far away from home, settling in a good company of friends. I think they have been the most welcoming people I ever found.

I was an outsider, coming from an other part of Italy, wiyh no friends or family to speak of, those guys simply took me in, and I will always remember them.
In those times friendship was everything for me, and I mean it, as they were the only support I could get, on both practical and emotional level.

I was may be a couple of years older than them ,and until then I never had the chance to be a teenager, with all the picks and pitfalls that it entails. They just let me in and I was grateful, even if at times I hoped for more, as I was already emotionally starved. But I was happy, good friends and good outdoor life in those beautiful hills that lay around Padua. I felt like I was finally having a chance to realise something with my life.

What was different from everything that came before, was the freedom to be who I wanted to be. Thinking of how fresh was for me to be able to laugh, to cry,to feel , to be even sad or moody.
Whatever the issue was, we all worked together to make sure the whole group was in tune and had a good time together. Really good times for me. I am sure that if things had gone differently, just may be I would had discovered my gayness much earlier.

It is almost funny now to look back. Now that my mind is clearing up, my memories are coming back. It is amazing how my mind had blocked through time people, situations and feelings. I am suddenly aware of a lot of things that were important for me then, guys I liked, crushes on boys and other fleeting moments that I simply bottled up. I am slowly realising that if I think carefully at my past, there are loads and loads of missed vclues that I have always been gay.

Problem is that I never have the time or the courage, or indeed the urge to look at my sexuality. I guess my priority was mother. She dominated my thoughts. I was not what she wanted . I felt on the run all the times, trying not to let her know what I did like or what I really thought. I always thought that if I exposed to her, and I am not talking of sexuality here, the result would be to futher myself from her, and as all I wanted from her was acceptance, better not open up to her and keep it as it was. Distant and civilized, well most of the times civilized, it was a relationship of sort, waiting for a better chance of making myself true to her.

I knew that there was something different in me, as I said elsewhere, I knew boys already, early in my twenties I had already some experience with men, when I arrived in Padua I was just coming out of military service, where I felt for the first time the full on attraction for my lovely friend. Marco. He was my first real crush, today I think he did not know himself, as neither did I, and if we had a different outlook of life, we would have declared our love for each other.

I know, it is wishful thinking, but he was my first love. I only know that I loose all my inhibitions with him, I touched him, kissed him, slept with him, played with him socialised with him, and the best thing is that he was doing all this thing with me. He responded to me. We were attracted to each other. We talked of everything, and I felt wonderful.

But we never came out to each other. Today I can see it for what it was. My first love, the one that is forever. I can feel my tears mounting inside me when I think of him. I do not know what I was for him, though.

We were in military barracks, I was careless, I did not care if people looked at me strange. I guess he never felt the freedom I was proving. He did not care much about what others would think, but he was local, his family was just out of the city. He did go back most nights, so there was probably some stigma or issue there.

Again this is may be just how I remember it, all the signals were there, but we never talked in deep about that, we acknowledged our frindship but nothing more. For my part I was scared that if I simply say to him "I love you", all would disappear. I lived the moment, too scared to try to consider the possibility of losing what we had. May be it will come out as the biggest mistake of my life, not tell him my true feelings. It was easier at the time.

If for any luck he had made me accept I was gay, I would have to tell mother. No good. Best shut up and do not rock the boat.

I did not see, it was in front of me. If only my mind had been less troubled, today I would be in a better position. I am sure.

As it did go, my uneasiness with it all, mother to deal, my complex of inferiority to her, and at a different level my feelings for Marco, my attraction to him, my need of belonging, the acceptance of my peers and God knows what else. All pressing on me in thousand different ways, from different angles. I was not able to deal with it. I have no clue. I did not know even if I understood why I started getting hooked on drugs. I thought they make me relax, and that is yhe truth.

I needed to relieve my pressure and I did go about it in the worst possible way. Drugs tempted my mind and tricked me in a state of numbness and false pleasure. Drugs tricked me to think that if I felt moody, I could use it at will, relieving the pressure for a few houres. After a very short time my body started the physical dependancy. After a while it was not a relief valve for my mind, but a necessity for my body to function properly.

So I created another problem for myself. Another thing to hide from mother. With time drugs became the principal issue in my life, in my relationship with mother and the rest of the world. . I lost sight of my feelings,
and let drugs rule my fears and guilt when dealing with it all. By the end of it all I had lost all my friends, and mother. I was a bad person that used drugs because I was too weak to deal with my own truths. I run and run and run, wishing to just crash on a wall and die.

Years of drugs had tied up my soul and mind. Shoot that shit in your veins, stay still, do not move and do not think. Fuck my soul and everything else.

Today I am left with nothing of a life and a scarred body and mind.

Today I had freed my soul and had started the healing. I am happy with all that I have achieved, but life is still not back. I am start to feel again, sometimes I can feel that young Alex, happy and almost confident, poking out and look, but somehow there is still something that I have to learn again.
I feel that I do not know how to react with others, I am scared that they can see through me and see that after all I am not a good soul. Mother is still haunting some how.

My feeling of not being worth as a son, still rule over my feeling of achievement. What is worst is that it clips my soul. My insecurities are of not acceptance, I need a full integration of my soul to my body.I am behaving in a restraint way. I cannot let myself go. I can feel the grasp I have on my reality, but I am not confident enough to pick me up and stand proud.

Iam a better person that I was yesterday. I guess it have to be enough. The only way to amend for my past is to accept myself today.