Families

Some days things just come crashing to you,  a bit of the past that jolts you as if a meteor struck you as you were just walking along the pavement.

It was really about some thoughts that I had with my second best friend at high school at the time, she faced a lot of physical challenges in her life but she had hours of time to try to understand me and we were chatting would of been early 1982 about tv and what we saw mattered to us.

You know, the kind of totally random teen stuff that actually in hindsight was really pretty significant for how I saw and felt.

Let me explain. On commercial tv there was a long running American tv show about family life across the decades called The Waltons that featured this extended family sharing lifes ups and down together in rural Virginia, and the head of the family John Walton Snr, operated a lumber mill and supplemented their income with a small-scale farming. They took in people and shared a lot as a family united, attending church on Sundays.

That's probably was much as I need to say for the purposes of this entry as I'm not writing a essay on the series or anything as it's what's in more modern parlance a "Slice of life" series seeing the family grow and change over time in accordance with events such as the Great Depression, WW2, the Great Society and Civil Rights  era and so on.

The thing Linda and I were discussing was Family: what it means to be in a family, our involvement or interaction if you like with with Mum and Dad, your immediate siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles. The extent it is a 'unit' and all that.

We were also comparing and contrasting our own relationships  with our families to what we had been watching.

In a lot of ways she saw many parallels  between that of how she cared for them as much as they had to do quite a lot for her and the fictional family we saw.

I once said half joking to Denise one breaktime If it was like mine, then everybody would be off doing totally their own thing, with Mum trying to hold the thing together and me behind a chair on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

That may sound kinda melodramatic but there was and still is the lack of bonds between everybody, no real sense of feeling for one another, for me it wasn't a place of safety with one sibling who'd think nothing of verbally and financially abusing me which wasn't really helped by my being able to spot in seconds any outright lies he was telling to get more for himself as he felt hard done to and obliged to report it.

That's before you bring in Dad who'd explode at the slightest thing, throwing stuff across the room, propelling me in a chair into corners like trash, threatening to burn down the house.

You see, that's the big comparison  between what family was like for her and for me and to open about this really hurt.

This whole experience left a big legacy with me, not least a very strong feeling of longing, almost desperation to loved and cared for.

What I wanted so much was physical and emotional intimacy, a feeling beyond mere words of what it means to 'belong', to be bonded and have bonds that outlast their very beginnings, that provide emotional comfort promoting personal confidence and development.

A relationship that would teach me what I needed to know to get by with people, to be able contribute to it, helping me to stand on my own two feet as a grounded individual within the wider unit.

A wider unit that shared a common purpose, the raising of and looking after that family that was prepared discipline me in a loving, structured, affectionate way so fulfilled my role and expectations within it and our wider community.

I wanted to be...in the Waltons family.

Things that come together eventually III

I wrote a couple of entries last year talking a bit about how in a number of ways I am finding myself acting and being more of my emotional age not least with how the current Pandemic is affecting  life in a lot of ways.

This also covered the extent to which in the wider community I was being seen more as child as I go by more how I am and feel rather than roles that aren't really me.

There are certain images concerning how you would see yourself I have spoken about because in time they've become a muse for boy who remains so, an inspiration for where I'd be now. 

I am a product of very much the seventies and early eighties as I was somewhat reminded of watching a rerun of the 1980's episode of Back In Time For School series and the previous episode covering the 1970's when it comes to the cultural influences and attitudes.

My still a child self is highly informed by that spilling over to how as that child I associate how I dress as to being my age.

We've looked a bit at uniform on here not as much as the other blogs admittedly and really he is more like boys of my era dressed like not least wearing much shorter shorts than boys today so for school.

One issue with short trousers today are most cheaper pairs have no lining at all which we were used to and that those that do today do use for some reason or other black which wasn't what were had.

It happened that a limited run was organized by a certain retailer of otherwise regular David Luke proper grey short trousers as worn still in a number of schools such as combined infant/juniors or prep schools but with white lining.

A new pair more like those I wore then was what I wanted.

This cropped picture shows the approximate length having being trimmed from seven inch  to three inch of this classic shorts with a zip fastening that I was more used to and the fastening tabs although they are elasticated at the back

This is the full length lining that for my pair has been restitched after alteration.

Boys of my era stepped into our short trousers seeing the white lining, not quite the classic white but off white polyester/cotton lining before tucking our shirts in, fastening and zipping our flies up.

I was rather taken by a boy in that show who remarked upon not being sure about showing so much leg in his very brief P.E. shorts in a bit about school games but that was the thing, we did show more of our legs, it was very much boyish.

The authentic ten year old Chris was used to and expects to wear short short trousers not mid thigh never mind just above the knee that expose more of his legs and thighs.

The best short trousers for me are a new pair as short as those that prep school boy from 1980 wore that have the same sort of lining and that is what I have now.

They are taken up to a highly authentic length so when worn with the rest of my outfit, I look as that boy I remain and feel.

They just feel fantastic on me!

A cute loving caring boy

Jellycats are something I've been into for really rather a long time, collecting plushies, being so so cute and adorable as things that are just so kawaii do appeal to me although there's little denying I'm a boy.

It's things like that which have been at the core of some of disagreements with people in the past with some saying "You're not a boy" if you like them and others still saying "You're really a girl" if you do and you should become one instead.

To me though my liking of cute things, my very tactile nature and strong emotional feelings are more about a important part of how I see and feel me and nothing to do with what sex I am.

There are many caring, nurturing roles that males do play a vital part in such as careworkers of which I had a few male ones growing up and actually they fact they could talk to me  man to boy was a godsend because you can't easily teach what it means to be a boy to someone as it's something you need to experience and knowing that helps.

So liking cute things and caring are attributes that belong in boyhood and ought to respected as much a the physical and mental resilience. 

How not to respond to a post

 Well I was going to write something pretty different here but seeing a post on the site Fur Affinity by a person who was born according to their birth certificate as male but appeared to be questioning the idea of being different although they had the odd inclination to wear a skirt.

I was going to put a good half hour writing a reply as something else happened that was a person waded straight in with a "come on in, the waters fine" reply as a transsexual taking them right down that line despite clear doubts.

Well I'm going to say straight off that lead to this post which is around how I saw the original post and not as I believe it was misread by a trans activist.

The first thing can hurt but I'll say it anyway which is wearing a skirt or a dress doesn't make you a woman, many women whatever our own likes and dislikes might be about that do just wear jeans, trousers and shorts near enough 95% or more of the time.

The question if you were in any way transgender is more one of do you fit in better with with females because how you relate to yourself and other females that you would sooner be her because you feel you are all the time?

Do you feel a sense of disconnectedness when you see yourself in the mirror between your conception of you, even intense dislike, hate and that body image that you'd trade that for a women's with a lot of surgery to make look from the outside  as if you were born one?

This person said they had a curiosity about wearing a skirt or a dress but felt pretty neutral about their (recorded male) gender having no sense of being at odds with themselves.

Men and boys can and do wear kilts to which some men do prefer the feel and look of over any sort of trousers and so my suggestion might of been to had experimented with wearing a kilt and working on acceptance of what makes you the unique male you were born with first as they had no strong feelings.

There are a small number of men who do part time dressing as a woman for a whole host of reasons but they generally like to 'come back' to being a man and that's not shameful or wrong, just something that fulfils a need without doing something they know would never be them.

Instead they got treated to the "Tell your closet friends to refer to you as female with she/her pronouns, wear skirts and welcome aboard" which really wasn't the best advice at all.

That's the thing that annoys me so much about the activists. It's not defending their right to be themselves and of people who do find after careful consideration they do fit better in the female world, it's more the slightest indication of a variant and wanting to push you down a route that if you read properly what they said they were not looking for.

I may have the odd non stereotypical interest but that doesn't alter my real gender identity and sex. 

Being different

 Rather a rough week here with both the weather and a rather bad head meaning for instances I only got out the once on Sunday and I'm on painkillers and bed rest.

Anyway laying here with a few cartoons playing out on the Milkshake! block on Channel Five I was reflecting a bit on what makes me different to the point a specific reddit is a place I do check in most days for people who share the same sorts of issues as we all try to cope with something nobody prepared us for.

Most of us are broadly familiar with the development cycle of people as even if you didn't touch it in school biology classes, you'll observed different members of your family and how over time they have changed not just in looks but the sorts of things they are interested in and are more able to understand.

For most people it's a fairly linear concept, extensive needs changes to guidance that diminishes as you get older around the same point you are able to take on more responsibility to yourself understanding more of what being a grown up is.

Then suddenly you get a birthday card with a key on it and everybody says you're a young adult now as you're looking at getting a job or going to Uni.

Well it doesn't happen like that for some of us, I got stuck a few years before adolescence in lots of ways and even at that point I was more in tune with the class a year or two below ours struggling to keep up with them.

That gap got bigger and more pronounced as my peers became teens and especially by sixteen plus, just about following the subjects but very out of sync with teenage life simply because I wasn't  a teenager mentally.

People do struggle to actually understand how it is that many of us who often have autism, adhd and other issues are just like that, in many respects children who may have the gifts that come from really understanding some topics very well but many of the vulnerabilities and needs that a child have.

Often we are dismissed for "refusing" to act our age when in reality we haven't elected to not be grown ups we are only acting on our actual feelings, emotions and behaviour that we innately have because we don't have any other.

We struggle when where we are able to find work, much of the conversation not least at things like office parties revolves around adult programming, grown up leisure and  the like so we can't  talk about what we love to play with, the cartoon series we adore and our latest plushies.

And then there those occasions when what you are meaning is utterly over our heads and the times people try to take advantage of it.

None of us is perfect but please do try to understand us and don't condemn what you don't understand.

Mission Accomplished

We are almost past September and making our way into Autumn with darker nights and ghoulish things later on which may have its negatives but such changes make for variety and being more engaged with things.

One thing that I have been very much engaged in across the last two months is the moving across and reforming of a Tumblr from a frankly very messed up account to one that was quickly created with everything that started in late May threatening one account and two tumblrs on it.

The first tumblr I made on it was a more age regression friendly interests based one born of the realization that if wanted to be with a group that did more for my mental health needs, then what I needed was to just accept their limits and make it to fit that.

After all unlike most Tumblr users I do have own blogs off there where I can beat my own drum around topics and not have to deal with what often seems like arbitrary "triggering" definitions but that left the ashes of TSB/TSBII in their varying forms.

Both of those were formed more with a adult schoolboy, past schooldays core that had been altered skirmish after skirmish although they were very much safe for work and certainly okay for anyone past nine years of age to had seen.

For me That Smol Boy 10 alias pasttimesforever10 is less around new things such as tv shows but more as the url would suggest past times so while a few vintage school and scout based photographs are in there, because as you lot ought to know that's about my own past, it does major more on past tv shows, the books we read, family life in the past the hobbies and games we played as boys.

It is also purposely non community to avoid issues although the aim is to get things very much more "at peace" with those people while at the same time avoiding those people who think anything connected to schoolboy life is all about adult content and from that being seen as linked to it.

Well at long last this weekend, I have finally remade it so in time all I need to do is delete the old version given I can't even delete the account it's so messed up

Free to be me

 

Sometimes I feel I've gone on about some aspects of this life which admittedly are necessary but may also in minds of others get in the way of seeing what indeed the biggest thing about being that person, the adult little child is really about although we did briefly touch on it a few weeks back

Really  it is the freedom to be you, to enjoy being what you are, a child and to be naturally child-like in your sense of fun and adventure several steps away from the grind of adult responsibilities that you struggle to understand never mind do.

It's having a laugh, being from what might be seen from a grown up angle to be silly, not risky, just anything but serious and that's what it's all about.