I know it's been a while since my last blog entry, but I'm back and hopefully I'll update this blog a little more often.
First of all, the reason for my absence. During the second week of March we got a phone call from my grandfather in Japan saying his wife, my mother's mother, was dying. She'd had cancer for a while but wanted to keep it from the family so as not to worry us all, but as the doctor told her she had only a few weeks left she decided she wanted to give the family a chance to say goodbye.
Before anyone posts any commiserating replies, until March I'd met my grandmother only a couple of times and both times were back when I was too young to really remember. I don't feel sad at all, because we all flew over to Japan and I got to spend three and a half weeks getting to know her before she passed. Yes, it's sad she died, but she was eighty-eight, she had six children (three adopted, one fostered), eleven grandchildren, three great-grandchildren, a long and happy career as a teacher and, most important of all, she died without any regrets.
She had a devilish sense of humour and in spite of the pain she was in at the end she had a smile on her face whenever I saw her. It was an honour to get the chance to meet her before she died, and to know her a little bit, and in accordance with her wishes the family is celebrating her life rather than mourning her death.
While I had Internet access in Japan, I spent much of the time getting to know my grandmother and other members of my family, some of whom I've never met before. I've discovered that my extended family is absolutely wonderful. I have two cousins who are gay (well, one cousin is bisexual but she has only ever had relationships with other girls, and one cousin...actually, the son of my cousin, who has just come out to his parents at the tender age of twelve) and the whole family is accepting...with the exception of my grandfather who refused to even acknowledge his gay grandchildren. Can't please everyone.
Anyway, we got back to the UK in April and I came back with a resolve to fix some of the problems in my life. First thing I did was cut all ties with a forum I've mentioned in my blog before. There are some great people on there and I've made a couple of good friends, but the atmosphere on there is toxic and I felt better the moment I was done with the place. I changed my email address and then typed a random stream of letters into a Word document and pasted it in as my new password, so even if I wanted to go back there I could only do so by creating a new account, and that's far more hassle than it's worth.
The next thing I did was consider my education prospects. As I mentioned before, I was forced to drop out of college earlier this year because my teachers didn't think I had caught up enough to sit the exams, and I've decided once and for all I'm not going back there. I'm leaving some fantastic friends behind, but also some bad memories. I can stay in touch with friends without inflicting those memories on myself.
Dylan has decided to stay on at college for another year, get a couple more AS Levels under his belt, and so I'm moving down to live with him and his family in August. I'll be going to college with him and then we'll head off to University together a year later than planned. I know it would be better for him to go when he had planned, which would be a year before me, but I've tried talking him out of it and he's determined he's going to wait for me, and honestly I can't say I'm sorry about that. We've spent more than enough time apart and it's not like he's going to be sitting around doing nothing for a year.
Finally, I'm back in counselling and it really seems to be helping. I'm feeling happier than I have in a long time and though I feel like I could now do without the counselling I'm going to keep going until I move down south, and then maybe find a new therapist. To put it in my brother's delightful words, seeing a therapist is like carrying a condom around in your wallet - you may not always need it, but it's better to have it there in case you do. He's such a charmer, I wonder why he's still single.
So, I'm back and after spending some time getting my life together I'm blogging again. Sorry if my absence worried anyone - I just needed the time to get back on track.
Oh, and while I was away a poem I wrote was published in an anthology. I wrote it as a sort of meditative mantra last year, but it seemed to fit the theme of the anthology so I submitted it and they accepted it. It seems to have had some fairly positive reviews, even if one of the reviewers thought I might have been another author on there writing under a pen name. I suppose I should be offended, but the author he thought I was is one of my favourites so for him to even suggest my work might be on par with that author's is flattering. Anyway, take a look if you're interested, and if not take a look anyway - the design they came up with for this anthology is breathtaking! The poem's here: http://anthologies.authorshaunt.com/2011/ocean/atpeace.php
