Two steps forward and one step back

 There were a few things I could write about this week but this is really the compelling one.

We all hoped as the weekend approached that our National team approached the finals of the Euro 2020 that the great work Neville Southgate had put in in managing the team thus far would lead to that elusive much sought after thing, a win in a final after fifty-five years.

It's been that long that although I have no recollection of it, it seems from the age I went to Infants we'd been looking for it for ages and we were up against an exceptional experienced  opponent who really had got it together from their first match.

A goal scored by Shaw in the second minute no less looked like it was going to set us up for that win we desperately wanted by having scored a a goal in the second half, Italy held us to a draw.

Then it happened, no progress being made by either us or the Italians we went into a penalty shoot out which our strikers lost at, penalties are something English player in particular always seem to struggle at and it was all over with.

A Three-Two win on penalties to Italy. 

For a side that had done so well, putting the everything into it as sad as that was, we couldn't of expected more from them.

Then the backlash started with frustrated fans racially abusing three of the strikers who'd missed on social media as if that had *anything* to do with it, something that at one point we thought we'd tackled but in the age of the armchair racist with his smartphone it has resurged and sadly this joyful sporting event even if we lost, was marred by this behaviour by so-called fans.

As far as I am concerned you're no fan of England, no patriot, if you attack racially your own sides players because they represent US and they are proud to do regardless of race and religion.

In this competition, religious and racial differences were put aside in communities where things haven't always been as harmonious as we all would of liked with people supporting as one, waving our flag together.

We were United and we all stand together in opposing racial abuse of our own countries team players.

Be the change.

Little and proud

Indeed  am a little am for real having been seen in the flesh by a good number of people  and most definitely proud.

Terms or indeed if there was a single term to describe what you might call an adult by age who doesn't feel adult, who shares many of the facets of a child not by acting but just spontaneous responses to everyday situations change and indeed at the start of this quest that began in actual childhood I didn't even know to describe this feeling of being younger than your years existed.

I'm forever a boy in my t shirt and shorts just playing and having fun when I'm not learning  at a desk with my toy soldiers and teddy bears.

It can take differing presentational forms such adult baby/toddler, little or more of a school boy form or even just on the inside with just regular adult attire on it's just a state of being that once you accept it is you really is the bestest thing.

The importance of just being you simply cannot be overstated I feel.

On relationships and life

Relationships not least family ones have  played a negative part in my upbringing from distancing, not willing to get close to me or to encourage me to get closer, being more overly affectionate as well as a sense of suspicions between family members that just corroded any meaningful sense of trust and security I ever had.

Living in a world where you always watched your back, where telephone conversations were bugged, people lurked behind doors listening in  and mail read took its toll on me even to the point I was writing or drawing stuff about it in my teens on correspondence and never kept a formal diary in case it was read which it would.

What I long for as an adult little boy is the simple love and affection of a forever mother and father figure who will help me feel loved, wanted and secure so I can grow.
Is that too much to ask?

Weekly review

I'll say at the outset, I am not at all well day so apologies in advance if this entry is a but shorter than usual or has any mistakes.

After the rather overcast and wet weekend here in the Midlands, we are seeing the return of Sun and more warmer weather for being out in having seen a good number of house sparrows, blackbirds and magpies around in the last couple of days.

Indeed two house sparrows seemed to be engaged in a sparring session trying to chase each other from bush to bush and from tree branches until one achieved his victory.

This last few days though do feel different with me because I received a telephone call from an Aunt informing me my Uncle Ian had died suddenly at hospital where he'd been with a heart condition for a period.

It's fair to say he was something of a character, having got his GCE's he was Mechanical Engineering Apprentice of the Year, receiving an award and then decided the world of regimented work wasn't for him so did odd jobs, acted as a Gamekeeper on an Estate  and the like until ill heath meant he wasn't able to work.

He also got into serious trouble related to the controversial Community Charge aka the "Poll Tax" spending a short time in prison in the early 1990's.

This all said he was very much a family man, highly involved in his own children's lives and always always having time for me especially when for a period he lived but two houses away from us and we played with and spent time inside with him and his family having joint fireworks for Guy Fawkes Nights with Catherine wheels whizzing through the air almost setting fire to nappies on the washing line!

It was a different era when it came to things around heath and safety.

He always seemed to understand me talking away at parties and that about various things.

It's too early to know about funeral arrangements not least with Covid and it's restrictions still about but it's certainly affected my emotions this week.

Summer changes

We will know soon enough about what is actually going to happen over the summer as at the time of typing this there is much discussion although it seems most likely to be delayed until early July at the very least.

This does complicate things because I was rather hoping to get away given it's been near enough sixteen months since I was able to stay overnight somewhere and just explore never mind be with friends.

It's the uncertainty that's the killer really, not being able to make plans or if you do you find they can't happen.

The one thing from all this really is just rolling back to a children's role so much just living in the moment, doing what you're told and playing anyhow through it all letting all the deep thought and analysis pass me by.

It makes things easier to cope with cos you're just going with it is not that isn't stressful but you're not so focussed on it cos we can enough even if there are limits around contacts and I won't be going back to where I was because losing adult status and roles has been the one gain for me.

People look out for me, I do what they say now and  it works out better.

 

Be you, not a label

 

Recently I was reading a post by a person who was born as and had seen herself as a female but had started to think she wasn't really all that feminine and might be non-binary but then started to say they didn't identify with the they/them pronouns but felt she needed something to indicate difference.

The first thing is what she is talking about isn't actually sex and how that affects you biologically, she did say she had no issues with her body, but really more about gender the roles and the way people relate to you socially.

Gender as I understand it, is very much a social construct albeit one that is linked in to sex ultimately and how and what is seen as stereotypical and usually such accepted behaviours does vary over time.

You can have some traits that may be more associated with one sex without that meaning you identify as the other sex in which instance the thing you are looking at is more acceptance of difference so you have no real need to announce any change of gender or plan on changing the appearance of your body.

My own experiences lead me to feel we put too much emphasis on looking at defining to the nth degree gender traits to mark up the least differences from the normal forgetting within all of that exists personal variation.

Instead more time could be spent on celebrating what makes us ourselves within our sex and the variety within our gender such as it is.

Don't fear your shadow, be confident in it knowing you are being the male or female you are however you show that.

Retumbled again

 

Last week was a bit messed up for issues at Tumblr that yet again came down to not this time thank goodness actually having an account removed but rather a concerted attempt I spotted by a cohort of age regressors on Tumblr to having made invidious accusations with threatening phrasing and even multiple usage of the 'f' word based entirely on misunderstanding around a person to whom I felt frankly very let down by.

The daftest thing about it was what I blogged from them were picture of historic houses, events and tourism often with great detail about each one but it was more what they were involved around with other tumblrs that had caused this.

The only reason I reblogged from them was that I was getting tired of reblogging past schoolboys images getting on for around fourty odd years ago and wanted to move away from that.

Unfortunately rather like topsy the drama just grew and grew with me being told I'd altered my url to that a completely different person.

I decided that this needed dealing with and so I made a new account having terminated the one that would be without any and all of the history of both that person whose account was terminated and other followers who showed clear signs of viewing children as sexual objects.

Given that in all honesty the only tumblr that actually mattered was one used mainly for stuff most regressors would post such as cute boyish things, toys and the like and as someone who has age dysphoria lives in the space where all of this is where we are at I'd start all over again.

That meant dealing with the reality that much of what I'd like to reblog comes from those age regression communities who rules whatever one thinks of them you are going to have to shadow are just going to have to be followed.

This appears to have caused some tension between another person  who I liked a lot who'd been more or less told the same after some drama of their own and their friend as while I was discussing this seems to have thrown the block switch.

One way of looking at this is while I feel upset about that I shouldn't feel I should be under the shadow of another boy but taking up my own ball, doing what I feel is necessary as it appears only when I mentioned about the reddit I chat on did this happen.

I did have another totally separate account that like his also had often vintage pictures of boys around the sort of age I remain mentally on tumblr although they were not a mainstay by any means of it so apart from removing some 270 odd pictures from the person who had let me down, I did ensure nothing from those tumblrs who seem to have a fixation more routed in kinks/bdsm were either following because some of their comments were sexual on reblogs and removing from following as simply when your blog is just like that apart from my feelings about sexualization of children, you do have to ask yourself the question "and why would you follow them anyway"?

For me a lesson learned is regardless of what I might blog and what even the images may be, you will be judged upon who they are and so you need double check who you follow and remove anything that will comeback to you even if you were the innocent party.

On tumblr at least some communities are just incompatible