Glenn's Diary

 

Chapter 11

15th August 2005

1969

As we moved into our 4th year in Senior school I achieved some more sporting highs. I was the first person on record to hit a cricket ball so far and high, that it broke through the pavilion window.

I went on to captain the school rugby team; yet Mum and Dad never saw me play.

By the time 17 came around I decided to stay on at school. The curriculum for A-levels was such that I couldn't do the A-levels that I wanted, due to clashes of times, so I ended up doing A-levels that I had no interest in; which really showed after the first few months. No-one explained to me that I could have gone to college to get the right A-levels. It was a disaster. Mum and Dad just left me to my own devices. They showed no interest. I eventually left at the end of the first term and took a job with Henry Boot as a Trainee Civil Engineer in 1971; on the princely sum of £444 a year.

It was about this time that I started playing squash. I became pretty good at it. So good at one point when I was in my late 20's that I started playing County standard; which is a really high standard in the UK.

At the height of my squash playing years I was playing as many as 11 matches a week. On average though, I was playing 3 or 4 times a week between 1975 and 1987.

Mum and Dad have never seen me play.

In 1974 I met my wife to be. Because my Mum was so fat, I had a real paranoia about fat people, so was pedantic about being with very slim girls. I'd look at their mothers or fathers, depending on who they took after, to see how they'd turned out, just in case they were destined to be a lot bigger when they got older. She was tall, blonde, very slim and very attractive.

Not long before I met her, I'd gone through a very traumatic experience. Whilst combing my hair in the mirror, I noticed it was falling out. I was shell-shocked. Even though my Dad was balding on top, I'd never even considered it would ever happen to me.

This was the 70's. Hair was everything. Without hair you were nobody. In those days, balding men were shunned by women. Not like today where it can even be a fashion statement. Oh how the attitude to baldness has changed since then.

I was desperate. I was convinced that if I didn't get myself an attractive woman before they noticed I was losing my hair; I'd never get one. She seemed to fit the bill. We hooked up and had a reasonable relationship. I was desperate to get away from my parents, and she was desperate to leave hers too. We both just wanted the independence. We announced that we were going to get a flat and live together. Had that have happened, then things would have worked their own way out. But Oh no! her Mum had to stick her two-penneth in. She said that if I truly loved her, I'd want to marry her, not just live with her. This was a major commitment that I could have done without.

I was pushed; either into marriage, or away. I was desperate. I had to go along with it. I knew it wasn't right. It was stupid of me. Her Mum and Dad spent £3500.00 on the wedding. That's about £21,000 ($37,000) in today's money. They were working-class people; but this young woman was their only child and they'd saved for her wedding. It lasted three years; that's all. I got married for all the wrong reasons. I was so ashamed for the trouble and expense I'd caused.

We married in church in Dronfield. As she walked down the aisle, I was thinking to myself, "What am I doing here?" It wasn't fair on anyone. Mum and Dad didn't contribute at all to the wedding and bitched the amount of money her parents were spending on their daughter's wedding. I guess it was their way of validating not making a contribution.

Yet there was something very special to come out of this relationship. My wife's family were extremely close. My wife's mum had three sisters, all living nearby and they often socialised, with their families. When they met, they hugged and kissed. I'd never seen this before. They brought me into their fold and they hugged and kissed me each time we met. We met often; at birthday parties, Christenings, Easter and Christmas.

Mum and Dad went to meet them for the first time when my in-laws were planning the wedding. They coincided it with a family party, so that Mum and Dad could meet 'the family'. The event was at the in-law's house. It was a small semi-detached house in in Sheffield. About 1200 square feet. All seemed to go well.

When I went home with Mum and Dad that evening, they bitched the whole family for their falseness in the way they were with everyone. "All that hugging and kissing. It's not natural. I don't like it. They're not normal people. I shalln't be going there again," said Mum. Dad agreed with her. At the time I agreed with them about the 'lovey-doveyness' too. It was the first time I'd met all their family together like that and 'my' family experience was completely different.

Mum and Dad never sat together. They never hugged. A kiss was a peck on the cheek. The rest of our relatives were the same. ‘We’ were normal. My wife's family were weird. That was how I’d been programmed.

It took some time to realise that it was 'my' family that was weird. There was no love in our family. There was lots of love in my wife's family. The love I'd missed out on for 20 years. It took a while to realise; and cope with; but realise I did. At the age of 21, it still didn't mean that much to me; but I was going through a life-changing experience that would change my life forever.

I was unhappy with my wife and I started hunting around. I used my squash matches as a vehicle to do it. When I played squash, I often didn't get back home until 9/10/11 in the evening, so it was easy to meet someone and get back for 11. There were many of them. My wife and I drifted further apart; or should I say 'I' drifted further apart from her. She tried to get me to talk things through. Her mother did too. Her Mom and I had a conversation one day that turned out to be yet another life-changing turning point.

I was still that joker, desperate for attention and still sarcastic with it. She'd seen me offend some people at a family 'do', so she pulled me on one side and asked me why I was the ‘way’ I was with the sarcasm. "Just the way I am." I replied arrogantly. "Glenn!" she said. "Do you ever ‘listen’ to some of the words that come out of your mouth?" "What do you mean?" I asked. "Well if you did, you'd understand what a prick you really are!" she exclaimed.

Wow! That was the first time that I'd heard my Mom-in-law swear. It was a profound moment for me, and I was hurt. I discussed it for a while with her, explaining that I didn't mean to hurt or offend anyone; and that I just wanted to make people laugh. She gave me the other viewpoint. I was at that age where I felt there was no room for change. She asked this of me: "When you open your mouth to speak, why don't you make a start and listen to the words that you say. And then ask yourself, "How would ‘I’ feel if I were in 'that' person's shoes and had ‘that’ said to me?" and then as time goes by, start biting your lip, when you hear those words coming out?"

My immediate reaction was that it wouldn't bother me. But then as time went by, and I wanted to be liked, I sat up and took notice. I'd had a paradigm shift. I started to realise what a prick I really had been; and why I couldn't keep friends. This didn't help me with my relationship with my wife, but it set me off on a new journey. A journey of emotional awareness, emotional intelligence and a journey to seek out someone whom I could give all my love to, unconditionally.