1993.

I walked into the cloakroom, standing a distance away from the others. Taking my time to arrange my school bag into my arms, I wrapped it around my back. Stepping forward I asked the teacher with a large grin on my face. 
"Miss, what's going on?" 
I felt perplexed but curious. She told me that the school was doing a bag check because somebody had reported a scent of smoke inside our cloak rooms. No problem, I wasn't the type of kid to play with matches. But, something told me that I would be involved, because things like this always seemed to happen.

Being so young, it was unconscious at the time so I happily passed my bag on.  Mrs. Vernon pulled out a half empty packet matches from it. It was a box I had never seen before. These were deliberately lit, and planted in my bag in order to frame me. 


People suck don't they?

Especially when you're five years old.

My first year of primary school. I hated it. I was a pretty introverted child, and I didn't speak much, or pay attention to any of the classroom activities happening around me. I was confused, and wondering where my mother had disappeared to. Nobody would ever tell me. So i sat alone. That meant at the end of the day I had no friends, and when you have no friends, you have enemies. 


I guess those kids have no idea how vividly i remember some of the things, albiet, stupid they put me through at such a young age. It makes me wonder if how I viewed the world as a child has shaped how i react to things today.

"Morgan. Not again. You always do something wrong. Why are there matches in your bag? Don't try to deny it, because we've found them," were some of the words I remember hearing. Meanwhile my smile began to deteriorate as my five-year-old logic cracked. At that age I couldn't comprehend why the matches had gotten there, and the reason I was being blamed. I felt like an alien, and it was frightening being talked to this way at school considering how much care and attention was paid to me at home.

That November day I sat in the cloakroom crying for hours as the teacher told me I wouldn't be allowed to go home until I admitted to taking and burning said matches. In hindsight, I felt like a criminal in a police cell being blackmailed into admitting unlawful behavior. It seemed like I was being brainwashed by someone of authority into deciding that I should take the blame- because, nobody else would.

Any normal five year old may have just gone along with it. But for some reason I chose not to. Somewhere in the tiny thought process expanding inside me, I decided that I would stand up for myself. I clung to my convictions against somebody probably ten times older than I was, on my third week of primary school. Two hours later, my dad came to pick me up. He and teacher had a yelling match in front of me. As a father, he had my back. He knew I wouldn't lie, because we're family. I've never lied to him, about anything before.

What's the point of posting a blog about something which happened sixteen years ago? To be honest there are three reasons. The first is that I like to write about my past from the present. There is nothing more alluring than going back and remembering how things were, especially when life gets more beautiful, like it has for me. Second, I had a dream about this event last night, and I've had them recurring my entire life, writing them down will hopefully get rid of them. Third, even though I am entirely confident and happy, I am still trying to understand myself. Did you know that apparantly our personalities are shaped by the first six years of our lives? 

Where do these seemingly normal values we carry as adults come from? That one little event (of many) affected how I saw the world as a child, though those feelings I gained changed how as I grew up to understand my place, as I interacted more closely with the world. 


I've always been scared of dark places, since I can remember. And until I came out of the closet, I was deathly afraid of being extroverted. Both of these fears came from my struggle as a child to make sense of why I was living with my grandmother, why I was "different" and why people just seemed to hate me for no reason.

Have a think to some really poigant times in your childhood. Our memories allow us to remember very tragic or very happy times. I guarantee you there will be an event or a series of events that lead back to some of the things you say or do now, some of your irrational fears and thoughts. 


I know that childhood plays a huge role in shaping people because I have two best friends who i've known since the early ninetees. All three of us have been though different hoops and turned out to be completely different people. But there are little things I see in them that remind me of what they were like in the past, or hints about events which changed them aswell.

What I learned as a youngster from this all, is that those in power aren't always right. They are actually more often wrong then they are right. That teacher didn't actually know that it was me who did that. She didn't bother to consider the variables, or use any type of lateral thinking. She just used her position of authority to take out a little guy, because that's what the process ordered her to do. Twelve years later when I studied the novel "one flew over the cuckoos nest" about conformity verses individualism, it's no wonder all of my essays about power verses liberation were all excellences. My experiences with both this, and with coming out of the closet have shaped me into an incredibly social creature. Sadly they also made my relationship with my Grandmother strained when I was reaching an age where I felt I could provide and make decisions for myself. She decided at that point the control was still in her hands. 


A power struggle ensued.


But that story is sealed now and I will not open up that book again.

I hope in writing this down I can erase that memory which still actually affects me. Somewhere in the depths of my brain i remember how marginalized I was back then. It can strike a chord. Sometimes, when i'm being talked down to, or told off, or treated like shit because of who I am outside my control... a sudden sheild flies out of nowhere and in the past it was difficult to control. 


My reflexive attitude has distanced many people. This makes me sad. I wanna change though. Sheilds are bad. 


They keep the evil out, but they also keep the good out at the same time.

We all want to change to some degree. Otherwise we would stay at the same job, doing the same thing each day. We wouldn't seek new friends, forge new relationships or invest our time in new experiences if we weren't compelled to manifest new ways of thinking. The way I see it, the only way to change is to stop thinking "I wish people would quit judging me because of who i am", and instead to think "I wish I could cease judging myself, for who i am".