The Bigger Man

Sometimes, everything can get that little bit too much. Everybody annoys you and you just feel stuck in a rut. People just talking in general, grates. Any remark made, even in jest, pisses you off. And you spend your day wishing for another time, another place….anywhere but where you are.

Today is one of those days.

Life is going swimmingly, nothing has particularly happened and progress is being made. So what’s the problem? Well, for starters, everything is moving to slow for my liking. I’m not a fan of patience and hate feeling like I’m living in glue. I know where I want to be, but I’m not getting there fast enough. Maybe 5 months of not being able to walk, having to depend on others for too many things and not having the freedom to do what I want, has finally got to me?

Whatever the reason, the one thing I need to remember is this - there are far more people, in far worse positions than I will ever be. It’s impossible to get on with everyone all the time and the few that do irritate you, make up such a small amount of the population it renders them insignificant.

Through all of this, trying to stay true to your beliefs is the hardest thing in the world. How can you be who you want to be, when others won’t let you? When someone pisses you off, it’s natural to react. If someone puts you down, it’s natural to fire back at them. And when things just don’t feel like they’re going your way, it’s hard not to hate and blame the world.

Hell, I’m too old for these games of one-upmanship, playing the alpha male and conversations consisting entirely of ‘banter’. Sometimes it’s harder, yet entirely more fulfilling, to not fight every battle and just to let things go. Let them wash over you. Take the high road, be the bigger man, whatever you want to call it, it comes down to the same thing. Who really is the better man? The kid who is ‘young, dumb and full of cum’(to rip-off Point Break!) and talks far too much or the wiser, kinder, more fulfilled figure, who tries to stay true to themselves and whose serene exterior belies the life they have lived and the adventures they have experienced?

Nowadays my tastes are simple. Good company, good conversation, a couple of beers and some good memories - forged by summers spent in Croyde with the Boss, the ‘gay’ centerparcs holiday with Sampras, lazy evenings skating and living it up in Manhattan with Merlin and Seth/Ryan time with the Captain.

When it just isn’t going your way, sit back, close your eyes to the world and cherish the good times you’ve experienced. Nobody can take those away from you. Maybe throw on a tune that takes you someplace else, but ultimately, look at what you have and not what you don’t have.

Aloha.