24. The Sad Episode

Had to go for a walk after this on, and shake it off 😳

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

When I look back at my teenage years, I I feel like I just wanna shudder. I want to try and ignore that they happened or ignore that I was the one that went through them. And I think it's because it's a very similar feeling to the one you get when you're scrolling through Instagram and everyone else around you seems to have everything kind of figured out and you don't and you feel like you're like there's something wrong with you or you've missed something or you've not you're not living your life as fully as these other people, right? I think that's the same thing with my teenage ears because in many ways I think I was just an idiot. I think everyone's an idiot when they're a teenager, but I think that I was less mature than well less mature than you would see in a Hollywood film, put it that way. Do you know when you watch films and you everyone seems that all the actors are kind of 30 years old but they're playing the part of a 16-year-old or a 15-year-old. So you're sort of led to believe that they've got all their shit figured out or they're they're just the way they interact is much more grown up than actually would happen in the real world. And I think that's how I feel about my my teenage years. There was a lot of um embarrassing moments that I kind of just want to forget about. And I think it all sort of stemmed from when I was just about to turn eleven, I think, so I was about to go to secondary school, big school, high school, all of my friends went to the high school that's ne was next to my infant school, right? So they they basically everyone went next door because my school was a feeder school for that school, and just as that happened, we my mum and I moved to the coast miles away for the summer holidays, and we planned I was gonna go to the school in um it's actually in Suffolk, well no, Norfolk, one or the other, Lowestov, wherever that is. I was gonna go to school there, and then the plans changed last minute, and at the end of the summer holidays we came rushing back, and there were no longer any positions available at the school that all of my friends went to. So I had to go to a whole different school on the other side of town, which meant getting two buses and being the only person that went to that school from my old school. So I was automatically on the back foot, and I think I was also a bit upset and a bit all over the place from the fact that we were gonna move to the seaside and then we last minute changed and moved back. So that that's quite an upheaval, isn't it? There was a lot going on outside of that as well that I won't go into, but so I was already kind of emotional, shall we say. That sounds a bit wet to say that, but that's kind of what it was. Um so we when I I remember going to my first day at school, and I remember it's so embarrassing. I remember I I cried my eyes out when I first got into school, and then one of the teachers had to take me aside into an office to try and comfort me, and then so I missed the initial registration bit of the day where everyone finds their class and gets put into a group who they're gonna be with, um, and I had to get walked into this room full of people I didn't know by a teacher, and I was probably looking a bit red in the face, which was really embarrassing, and yeah, there was a lot going on outside of school at the time, so I was a bit of a wreck. My home life wasn't very stable, so I think that is what led me to have I wouldn't say social issues, that sounds a bit extreme, really. But yeah, I made some friends, um, but I was very nervous at school. I was always worried about getting into trouble, and I was really, really punctual. I would always show up at school like 20 minutes early for the first year, and I would sit by myself in the corridor and just wait outside. And then there's one other boy who used to come in early as well, and um me and him would always talk. Um it was just yeah, I remember the first year just being this horrible thing where everyone else seemed to know each other, they'd all come kind of come from schools where they had some friends that came over with them, and I was the only one who was like an outsider, I was the only one that came in from my school, so I didn't know anyone. And not long before that, I'd also had the shit kicked out of me over the park by a gang, so that was kind of preying on my mind a bit as well. Um yeah, and I just remember when I was that age, if you've ever watched the in-betweeners, my teenage years were kind of like the in-betweeners. We were just crude, immature, it was all a bit pathetic, really. And I think when you I mean I know that obviously TV isn't real, is it, but I feel like when whenever I watch things on TV or whenever I hear other people talking about their time as a teenager, it always feels as if they've got things or had things much more figured out than I did. You know, and then I watch my my kids now going through their well, one of them going through her teenagers, and the way that she interacts with her friends, she's just so much more mature, and there's so much more room for awesome memories to be made, moments, you know, she spends loads of time sleeping around her friends' houses, they have parties, they go down the shops together, they do all these things. I wasn't doing that when I was her age, I was more often than not, I was out on my bike or I was over the park playing football or rugby or cricket or basketball or tennis or something like that, some kind of sport. I was just doing that, but maybe it just comes down to you know, girls are much more mature than boys. There's no two ways about that. I mean, we look we look after some of our friends' boys sometimes, and the difference in the way that they interact with each other and with us, it's massive. And I just think girls just are more mature, they're a good sort of four or five years ahead of boys in level in terms of maybe kind of emotional intelligence and just communication skills and just overall maturity. So, yeah, so I suppose it doesn't really make sense for me to compare my teenage years to my daughter's teenage years because you know, when I was that age, I was just an idiot. I still am to be fair, but I'm sure my wife would say that I am. But yeah, I just think there was some there were some really hard times when I was a teenager as well. Like, you know, my family and my life, some some really horrible things happened that kind of one of them being the fire that I I talked about on another episode. The house burnt down when I was 14 or 15. Was I that old? I don't know. Yeah, but my house burnt down. I won't go into other details, but there was m there was a lot of stuff going on. And uh my also my little brother was born when I was 12. Literally, think the world of my brother. He's like my one of my favourite people on the planet. He's he's like one of the best people, he's wicked. So yeah, but yeah, he was born, he's like 12 years younger than me. Which was he was like a baby when I first when he was born and I was 12. That's that's such a bit that sounded so stupid. I just said he was a baby when he was born. No, what I meant was he was only a baby when I was 12, so yeah, so like yeah, he grew up with me being his bigger brother who was 12 years older than him. But yeah, my life, I mean I think I would I would say it was when I turned 16 that's when things kind of took a turn for me because up until that point I was sort of trying to find my feet, who am I? What's I think it's like a social, especially as a boy, because there's there's there was a lot of violence at my school and a lot of um intimidation, bullying, that kind of thing. And I think up until I was about 15 or 16, I was always just trying to figure out where I stood in the the grand scheme of things because you know there were kids who uh they were sort of known to be a bit scary and a bit dangerous, and they had friends in gangs outside of the school, and you know, they'd sometimes one of them would get arrested. There was all it sounds like I went to like the worst school in the world, it wasn't that bad, but there were the there was always that element of oh you know I've got to be careful around that person or that person, you know, just be careful what you say to them. So when I turned 16, that's about the time when I'd just done my GCSEs, and I did didn't didn't get much in my GCSEs. I kind of got I think I've got overall I got four GCSEs. I got three that were um C's and then one B. Ironically, I got a B in maths, and I was I still am useless at maths. I had extra tuition in maths from my auntie, and she she's a really good teacher, so I kind of owe the B to her, really. I wouldn't have got it without her, but yeah, so I didn't get my five GCSEs that you need to, you know, you're told that you need to have a life when you're at school, they they spend all their time telling you that you have to have five five GCSEs, otherwise you won't stand a chance of getting a job, and next thing you know, you'll be out on the streets and then you'll be on drugs, and then they just they kind of they ramp you up to think that your whole life depends on you getting five GCSEs. It doesn't anyway. But I got four and wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I think the reason I got four GCSEs, all with low grades as well, is because I literally just didn't apply myself to anything. Every single school report I ever got was always he's really smart, but he doesn't apply himself, he messes around, he doesn't apply himself, he doesn't apply himself, he doesn't put enough effort in. That's that's always what I got told by teachers, and it always came back to my parents that I was just lazy at school, basically. And yeah, I'm not gonna disagree, I was. But so yeah, I didn't get many GCSEs, and then basically was ended up kind of shunting into doing A levels just because if I did that, I could pick up the extra GCSE that I didn't get. I could do uh what do they call them? A GMVQ, I think it was called. Don't know if it's still the same thing now, but you could do that basically and make up the other GCSE. Um and I went in for like business studies, literally had no interest in business or whatsoever at the time. But I did business studies, I chose that as one of my GCSEs, uh as one of my A levels, sorry, then it was psychology, and what was the other one I did? I can't remember now. But basically, I remember I went to I think one, maybe two psychology lessons throughout the whole first year, and the business classes. I think I went to about three, but spent most of that time messing around on the on the computer. But the important thing about turning 16 that time is that I think I kind of found out who I was. That's the first time that I kind of was accepted by people just for being me. I ended up being a bit of a um bit of a grunger, we used to call ourselves, kind of a skater boy. I kind of music was what defined me. I think it still is now to be fair, in a lot of ways, but music was the thing. I remember that was a time when you know Lincoln Park, Limp Biscuit Rule Out, Papa Roach, all that lot, all the alternative guys. Um, and I you know I started dressing differently, and I I noticed that me and my friends would all dress a certain way, and other people wouldn't, and that made us stand out, and I like that. There was a bench outside the school, kind of opposite the school, other side of the road on this sort of green, and we would all just go there and we would smoke. I started smoking when I was 16 as well. We would all go there and smoke, and we'd just hang around skateboarding, listening to music, messing around and being stupid, and that whole year of what could have been education just turned into me making some good friends and messing around. That was literally it. Um so anyway, I went through the first year of A-Levels with literally nothing to show, and I realised that this wasn't for me, I wasn't gonna get anywhere doing this. I had I had jobs as well, like I was working, I worked at the airport for a while cleaning airplanes, um, and I worked in a shoe shop, and then I think it was about I'm trying to get the time frames right now, but I'm sure when I was 16 that's when I basically left school and I went to work for a company that the MOD, but the Ministry of Defence, basically. I'm not gonna go into any details about what I did there. It wasn't a s nothing glamorous, I wasn't a spy or anything, I just basically worked in a storeroom, but I I worked there throughout the summer with the aim of it was a temporary thing until I could find a proper job, and I applied for an apprenticeship while I was there and got accepted into the apprenticeship, passed the interviews, got accepted into a four-year apprenticeship that was going to start when I was 17, and that is when my granddad had a stroke, and I still think of that as being one of the worst things that ever happened in my life. One of the worst things that ever happened to me in my life. My granddad was everything to me. He was my role model, he was my hero, he was everything to me. He was like he was like my dad. My dad was never around, never knew my dad, but granddad was always I was like his when I was a kid, everyone used to call me his shadow. He was always I was always like a step and a half behind him where wherever he went, whatever he did, I was always there. And me and him, me and him were so close, we used to like when I was a when I was younger especially, all I had to say was, Oh wow, how cool would it be to like do any anything. Play table. I remember I said to him once, oh do you know what? I was watching I was watching Forrest Gump, that's what it was, and I said to him, God, you know, I've never really played table tennis properly. Literally the next day, we're down the British Airways Concord Club place, and we'd we're playing ping pong, and then he brought me a he brought me a paddle like a bat, and um and we played together there, and then archery, I did archery throughout my that's another thing I forgot to mention. When I was um from the age of about 11 on to about 16, we did archery together, and that all started because one day Grandad asked me what I wanted to do. He said, Oh what you know, you need a new hobby, you haven't done anything for a little while. What do you want to do? And I said, I don't know, archery just as a joke. Next thing you know, we're down in this archery club. I'm getting lessons, and uh yeah, we competed. We we drove we went all over the place in competitions together. Every weekend we would go to the club and we'd shoot, we'd have barbecues, and we yeah, we did that for years together. But there's just so many things my whole childhood, granddad would always he was always over the park with me playing football or barking, any sport that I wanted to do, grandad was there with me doing it, and I would I would also spend all of my time fixing cars, doing the gardening, DIY, anything they needed doing, I was there with him and we would do it together. So when I was just about to turn 17, I think, or maybe I was 17, I was still working in my part-time job waiting for my apprenticeship to start, and my granddad had a stroke, and it was awful. I came home and found him, and you know, the ambulance ride, it was just horrific. And then we spent I don't know the exact time frame, but I think it was about a month or so in intensive care, where every single day we would drive into London. I was actually I was actually learning to drive at that point as well. Grandad would always take me out in the car practising, and um, when he was in hospital, occasionally I would be allowed to drive the car, you know, with a supervise supervisor next to me, learner badges, drive to the hospital through central London, which was chaos, and um we'd go and spend all afternoon or all evening after if I was if I was at work, I'll go and come straight to the hospital from work, if not, I'll come home and then we'd go to the hospital. And we did that for we didn't we didn't know what we were gonna get because we were told that he would never talk or walk again, and that that was it. But over the next year and a half or so, going through rehab and um just always down the hospital, and you know, rehab, he was actually sent to a special brain rehabilitation unit, and I could just I can remember so vividly the day that the day that he woke up because we didn't know if he was gonna wake up or what we were gonna what condition he would be in if he did wake up. And one day he woke up and he was talking to us, and the relief of that I still count that as like one of the top five moments of my whole life because it was just amazing. Um anyway, I started my apprenticeship, still coming to and from the hospital most days, and then Deeds Evening came, which is sort of at the end of your first year of your apprenticeship, and it's when you get given you have to sign your apprenticeship deeds, because it's a four-year apprenticeship, and um you come you're put they got everyone's families or parents to come in to the workshop in Acton, where there was a big thing of you know that we could show them where we worked, show them the workshop, all the machines we were using, all of the equipment, and then we would get to sign our deeds. And um grandad was in hospital and he was an engineer, you know, so he he would have loved what I was doing. Anyway, it's making me feel sad just talking about this because it was so it was such a hard time. But anyway, eventually granddad came out of hospital and he he was able to walk, talk, and we were really, really lucky to have uh, you know, a good number of years after that incident where granddad was around and you know he got to come to my wedding and meet my wife and both of my daughters, he watched them grow up. Um and then sadly in 2018 he uh passed away due to another stroke, basically. Um and that's maybe the worst day in my life, I would say. In fact, I think it definitely is the worst day in my life. It was horrific. It took me a long time to get over that. Anyway, I don't wanna this isn't meant to be um like a big sad thing, you know, I'm not I'm not I'm not doing a pity party thing here, but this was all through my teenage years that that kind of stuff happened. Um and I when I look back at my teenage years, even when I was in when when I was doing my apprenticeship, I started that when I was 17 and I just feel like I was an idiot. I've gone full circle here talking about how stupid I was when I was a teenager again, but I literally just felt like I was an idiot. I felt like I I just all I did was mess around. I just I just was constantly being silly, constantly obsessed with music and all I wanted to do was have fun. There was no real sense of responsibility or I mean I knew I knew that I needed to work towards getting a decent job. That was why I was doing my apprenticeship, but every single weekend we would just go out drinking, playing pool and darts, and going to clubs, all that kind of thing. Did that for years and then when I was 21 I met my wife and everything picked up from that moment onwards, and that's the trajectory that led me towards where I am now. If I hadn't have met my wife then, my whole life would have been completely different after that. So yeah. What is it you actually want from your teenagers? What when you look back, what do you hope to see? What what is it you um what would be a good way to look at your teenagers? I feel like it's so heavily in influenced by TV and films because you know you watch movies where kids there's there's obviously a plot to it, there's a plot to a movie, so it has a a beginning, a middle, and an end. But just the way that teenagers look in films, I feel like that influences the way that you want to look back on your teenage years. But then I suppose the biggest thing is when you've got kids of your own, when you've got your own kids, you look at them and the way that they're interacting with the world, and that's that's how you I you can't help but compare that to your your time when you were that age. When I look at my my daughter now, I'm so proud of both of them, but like my eldest, she's a you know, a teenager. When I look at the way she is with her friends and the way she treats people and the way the respect that she's got and the the guts, the courage she's got for putting herself out there and doing things that are a bit scary, but she knows is going to be good. I I'm just so so proud of her. And I don't think I Really had that, and then is that because I had stuff going on that was difficult in my life and it kind of threw a spanner in the works? I honestly don't know, or is it just because I was a boy and boys are are kind of inherently a little bit thick? I don't know. I really don't know. But it I've been thinking about it recently, probably just because my daughter is that age now and I've been comparing myself to her. I don't know. I think I think that teenagers now are are more woke as well. They understand that things are bad for your health. Smoking, drinking, all those kind of things. I think teenagers do understand that. Well, is it is that why they don't drink and smoke, or is it just that it's too expensive and they can't afford to do it anymore? I really don't know. But I smoked, but the the reason I smoked was because everyone in my family smoked. You know, it was normal for me. It was like just what you did. I remember being I think I was 11, maybe 10, and I remember my mum gave me a cigarette actually one day. I think more than anything just to to shock me into not wanting to do it, I think was the idea. But yeah, I remember my house was always just full of everyone used to smoke indoors, didn't they, back years ago? And I remember I remember just the house always being full of smoke when I was a kid, and everyone smoked. When I was when I was younger, my my parents used to send me down to the corner shop to pick up the cigarettes for them. I used to go down the road and get 20 Dunhill or play as number four and just bring them back, or sovereign for my mum, and um yeah, I don't know. It's just like when I when I think now about my kids, I absolutely do not want them to smoke. I don't want them to have anything to do with smoking or vaping or anything like that, because it's literally you poisoning your body and like spending lots of money to do it, which is ridiculous. But when I was younger, it was just like what everyone did. I just was always everyone always smoked. It just was normal, which is why I'm so anti anything like that in my house now, because I don't want my kids to think that that's normal, I don't want them to think that that's an okay thing to do. But I have got like a lifelong I've had a lifelong problem with smoking and vaping, and yeah, I find it really, really tough to give it up, but that's probably because it just feels it's normal to me, it's what you do, it's what everyone does, but it's not anymore. Alcohol as well is another one. Everyone around me always well do you know actually people in my family didn't really drink when I was growing up. Booze was never a thing that was around, but now I just feel like every single person I know drinks, so it's just normal, but it's bad for you, it makes you feel bad, it's no good for your health. Why do we all why do we do it? The the obvious answer is to take the edge off, isn't it? When you're when you're a bit tired or wired or you're struggling with life a little bit, there's nothing easier than to just have a drink because it just takes that just caps the edge off of life, and then you feel terrible the next day. Yeah, I don't know. I need to give up drinking really, or at least tone it down a bit. I say that, I don't drink that much anyway. So on the weekends I'll have a bottle of wine between my wife and I, or something like that, not a lot, but I still don't feel good about it, and I know that I know that's not doing me any good. Anyway, this is all getting a bit waffly now, which is tends to happen on this podcast recently. I kind of get into this mindset where I start start talking about something and then realise I'm waffling and then just cut off. Anyway, I'll uh I'll leave it there for now and um come back next week with something that I actually plan out rather than just waffling on about life. Bye for now.