Garlic Bread?

Oh, that annoying feeling, where you realise that you’re living your life. The one where you’re sitting down drinking Pepsi from a cup that’s always been in your house, and even though you’ve moved house five different times, this cup has managed to come with you on all those journeys, and you’re drinking from it, then you think to yourself, ‘Oh I’m living my life’. Also when you’re sitting down drinking Pepsi, cooking some garlic bread, watching Sky News on loop at 4.30am and then you think to yourself , ‘Oh I’m living my life’. Or maybe like that time, when you’re sitting down drinking Pepsi, cooking some garlic bread (garrrliiic bread?!), watching Sky News on loop, browsing round the cupboards for more food, looking in the fridge like fifty different times hoping that food will magically appear. Wondering if there’s something nice you could make with Butter, Salad Cream and a mouldy banana. Then you go back into the living room looking all defeated and upset because there’s no bread to make a butter and banana sandwich, with salad cream. Then you sit down on the sofa & just think, ‘Oh I’m living my life’. I hate when that happens. I don’t like bananas anyway do you? I like those sweets though, that are in the shape of a banana, I think they call them .. Bananas.


If you don’t know what I’m talking about then you’re either old and thinking about death or where I was a long while back. That comfortable and exciting position where you’re looking forward and making plans. Like when I was pretty sure that I was going to become a footballer and play for England. Then one day, I’m sitting here on this sofa, writing some words down, and I just realise, I’m not a footballer. Life has happened to me. You know when you get that speech from someone, ‘Oh you better have something to fall back on if things don’t work out’ ??
I had that speech once, and I said ‘I don’t need GCSE’s to be a footballer’. Oh and then what happened? Hurt your back did you James? Can’t play football anymore without nearly dying? Yeah that’s me.


It’s always people who have lived life longer, that always turn out to be right. It is frustrating though. Because I really liked those times, where you’re all young and naïve, and think that everything you’ve ever dreamed of, will come true. Like those people who make long, detailed plans of their lives, and tick each event off as it happens. But then what do you do when something happens, that isn’t down on your detailed plan? You can’t tick it off, because you weren’t expecting it. When stuff happens to you, your plan changes doesn’t it?

It is a bit upsetting to think, one day you are all confident and ready to live a life. Then another day you could be walking along still confident and ready to live a life, but then it’s been 10 years since you were first confident and ready to live a life. Then it hits you. That 10 years has been your life.



I feel like this has happened to me. In the sense I keep thinking to myself in my head, about funny times and incidents in my time on earth. Then I go ‘bloody hell that was ten years ago’. Like the other day I was thinking about when I went to Kavos when I was 17, me and three mates walking around like we owned the place. Then I realised I’ve lived nearly six years since that happened. I feel as if I’ve had a quality time don’t get me wrong. I’ve been on some trips. I’ve met a lot of characters. None of it was on my things to do list though. When I left school I wasn’t planning on spending the next six years just going out every night, making millions of friends, being involved in experiences & incidents, not all of them legal. I was/am ambitious. I have written before that I want to live a life different to those around me. I am and never have been a boy, who has ever wanted to live an average life. There is no part of my soul that wants to follow in Daddy’s foot steps, or get a job and work my way to the top. I’ve mentioned before that I pity all my friends that are turning into their dads. I don’t believe for a second that any young boy ever dreamt of being a builder, or a carpenter. Or maybe they have. Actually they probably have. But them be the boys with no imagination.

I’m not living my life to the codes and conducts of people who have gone before me. Just for the simple fact that I have seen how normality brings unhappiness. Some people love the thought of working in some dead end boring job, getting a wife & kids, paying off the mortgage to the shit boring house that they have. Then rotting away not being able to tell one birthday or Christmas from the next because their life has become so repetitive.


I always get mocked for not having a job. I don’t think the mocking is even about not having a job anymore though, it’s more of a lack of understanding of someone else’s life. A confusion because someone is going against everything that normal people do. How many more times do people want to write ‘get a job‘ to me on Facebook. To quote myself:


‘Why? because society has told you, you have to? Because you've been told that's the way you have to live your life? Because one day someone somewhere, a normal man like me or you said that's the way life has to be led? We get one life, you've chosen your path to safety & normality. I've chosen to break away from the conventions of ignorance and live my life the way I've decided to. As long as your happy with your life don't worry about mine. The bus I've got on isn't going your way so I won't hold you up. I wish you all the happiness.’


Ultimately what I’m trying to say is, I do sometimes sit down and think how time goes quickly, and I realise I’ve spent most of my time talking about things that I’m going to do, instead of actually doing them. Therefore living a different life to the one I have imagined for myself. However, I’ll always believe that as long as I don’t get influenced by others and turn into a normal man, I will forever have hope that my life will turn into the creative, adventurous, beautiful story that I have always wanted it to be.

I could give in now. I could get a job, and I could get a girlfriend and a life. It would be easy to do. Anyone can get a job, and anyone can get a girlfriend and be on that road that leads to ‘everybody else’. I would no longer get mocked, or appear strange. I would have respect and people would be happy for me. I’m holding out for better though. I’m holding out for the best. I’m curious to see what’s down that street called ‘don’t go down there avenue’.

That’s the risk you take when you don’t give up on your dreams. You risk failing. It’s a dangerous road to take, because 99.9% of the time you will look a fool. Everyone has a dream, but most people give up on it, and settle for what they have. Simply because they are happy. There’s nothing wrong with that. But there shouldn’t be anything wrong with someone who doesn’t conform to taking the short road to being ‘happy’. I don’t want to be happy anyway. I want to be happiest. And how boring a life it would be if you were going to be truly happy this early in life. What have you got to look forward to eh?


I’m not going to let 2011 be a year where I just go with the flow. I want to create the flow. I want it to be a year I can look back on and say that was a year I created for myself. Whereas other years were not planned, I want this one to have some kind of goal. So I don’t wake up in another 6 years time and think ‘oh I’ve lived a whole six years since I wrote that piece of writing’.

It’s going to be tough though, because I do agree with John Lennon when he said 'Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.'. I feel like that. I feel like I’ve been talking about my plans, but not realising my life is what I’m living now. I also feel to an extent I’ve wasted a lot of time just messing about. But then again, Lennon also said "Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.".