I have been busy these past few weeks. Seriously my uni work has just been like an avalanche on my ability to construct a coherent thought with regards to things I want to write about. I spoke about this in my last post and nothing has changed since then. I am in fact using this time to take a 20min break from academic work because something did stir some thoughts in my head.
Yesterday I google street viewed my old life. I am from South Africa and I now live in the UK. I left home a few days before my 19th birthday and have been living in the UK since then. At this point I am a few months shy of having lived here for half my life. This splits my life into two separate lives. This realisation came when I was street viewing my childhood home and the neighborhoods I once used to live in. I also think this idea has been rattling around my brain the last few years but I have never stopped to look at it.
I can't really remember my life growing up. I can from time to time remember specific events but for the most part it feels like a bit of a fever dream. This could be a medical thing or maybe I just don't remember. I know other people can remember their childhood vividly but for me it's an obscure thing that now feels more and more like memories of another person. I guess I was another person then. Would we recognise ourselves if we came face to face with each other now?
When I moved to the UK straight out of school and on my own I was given pure freedom and being that I was young and naive I absolutely fumbled it. Partying for nearly a decade was not the way to go and maybe has contributed to my fuzzy memory of growing up. Now I feel like I am at least back on the track I should have been on all those years ago when I came here. Most of my time here in the UK I wasn't the person I should have been...if that makes sense, but now I think I am more of that person from my childhood.
Ok let me explain. The other day a friend and I were discussing that we somehow turned out better men than we should have given our upbringing. I grew up in what I think was a very toxic masculine society that was also racist and misogynistic. I kinda adopted these traits to fit in with my peers but never felt that was me. When I do reflect on some of these things I always get the feeling that I never believed any of it but it was the culture back then for young boys. Anyway once I came to the UK I did the same which lead to the decade of partying and other unhealthy life choices. Once I realised that I didn't want to do this I started becoming that young boy/teen but without the need for those toxic traits. I was more confident in myself and my beliefs. I am now a mixture of that past life with this life. I would like to think the best bits of both.
This all came from google street viewing my old neighborhood. I'm sure I will end up writing more about this at some point. Would I recommend doing something like this? I dunno, it depends on whether your old life is something you want to see or remember. I'm not one for nostalgia so I don't yearn for the old days...well not all aspects of it but this did help with some things in my life.