Of Toy Dragons & Coming To Terms With A Wasted Youth

 Well, the last 8KGs of castings I need for my fantasy project arrived yesterday, so I'll be sending them to the painter this weekend and writing the painting instructions. YAY!

I have to say that I'n still really passionate about it and I am now planning on what to add now that all the rank and file stuff is in hand.

I bought some of the Schleich toy dragons at the weekend, which will get a bit of brushwork and a base job before being added into the collection. Toys? you say... Well hell, yes, and why not? 

Like it or not, no matter which way you want to try and shape it, you play with little plastic or lead dollies and hiding behind the facade of them being 'proper' miniatures is just a sign of your insecurity. Tell it like it is and embrace the fact that like me, you never really grew up.

Admittedly, I won't use the beaked one at the back, but I know a ten year old who has a load of 54mm fantasy figures, who would like this.

I've been collecting notes and interviews for my next book which will go into more detail of the period I could not write about 12 years ago. In 1986 I was hooked up with a girl who was so boring that our relationship lasted about 5 months and my best friend then ended up with her and thereby our friendship was put on hold for about 30 years. 

I went on a 4 year rollercoaster in the Goth subculture and a spiral of hedonistic over-indulgence and libertine living which although fun at the time, actually left me pretty screwed up. Of course there was some pretty good gaming and it was a time when I seemed to exist in two worlds at once, with a dreamlike feel to it and some experiences which most people would frown upon, but life was for living, no matter what the cost to my mental health and some really important friendships.

On reflection, I am still 50/50 on whether I'd do it all again... I met my wife at the end of it all so based on that I'd have to say I would, but then I reflect on 6 months of living as a hermit, only leaving my bedsit at night when everyone else slept. I never want to feel like that again.

Had I kept my true friends on my radar, maybe they could have staged an intervention and I could have not become estranged from them and my family. So here is how my ruminantions coalesced...

In the mid 80s when I was probably at my most formatively vulnerable, I was banned from Games Workshop. 

It was explained to me in 2003, by those responsible, that this was because I was a known face and that by banning me from the store, it would send a message, clear and load to those who like me, benefitted from cheap games purchased by staff on their discount. 

I was also told that at the time, those responsible thought of it as a ‘bit of fun’. In fact, it wasn’t, as it tore me away from a group of people who, I relied on to get me through a lot of those seemingly insurmountable teen tribulations. 

It left me socially marooned, and at the time not mature enough to negotiate my emotions, I felt betrayed by some of the people who may read this, some who would read it had they not passed away in the intervening years. I quickly somewhat cold-bloodedly turned against those same people who, only weeks before I had seen regularly, gamed, joked, engaged in marathon video binges and talked music with. 

In short, I decided that I felt betrayed, and rather than shrugging things off, I actively hardened myself up, creating an indifferent and selfish persona, determined to do unto others before they could do it to me. It was not the right way to endear myself to or gain the respect from, those I wanted to be with. 

I guess that I was like the classic spurned lover in some respects, spiteful and vengeful. By late 1985, I had effectively transitioned from the circle of friends I’d known and been blessed with because of this hobby, in it’s myriad forms, and I drifted into a new circle of people and influences which saw me go from gaming 5-7 days a week, to getting pissed 6 nights a week in places like The Limit and Sex 2. 

I dressed in black, listened to darkly themed music. I surrounded myself with a new circle of ‘friends’ who whilst they appeared genuine and exciting, were pretty shallow and 2 dimensional, with none of the loyalty or compassion of true friendship. Did I see it at the time? Obviously not. 

I met a girl who I thought I loved and who loved me, and so began 3 years of vicious emotional warfare, which only ended when I met my wife in 1988, as that relationship spiralled in a death-dive. 

Had I still had those original bonds of friendship, had I not burned my bridges, then maybe I would have been able to walk away, smiling ruefully and dusting myself off, chalking it up to experience. 

However, without that guidance and having just witnessed my first serious relationship, I was unable to do so. 

It took me, probably the first 15 years of my relationship with Kayte to ‘get over’ the damage of those 3 years, and the fact that one of those to whom I cannot direct this letter, was involved in a one night stand with my ’ex’ did not help endear me to my former friends, whom I mentally tarred with the same brush. 

 In 2003, 4 years after I lost Dungeons & Starships and at a point where suicide would have been the easiest option, I was formally diagnosed with anxiety and depression. In 2007 I underwent therapy and it opened so many doors, showing that I’d probably been suffering with it since that day in Games Workshop. 

It’s not an excuse: a get-out clause, just the facts. 

I have dealt with it ever since on a daily basis, shunning emotion-masking drugs and confronting myself in the mirror, taking the hard and brutal route to dealing with my spectres. It was 2011 before I was able to even say the name of that 'ex' name out loud, and that was during the time I completed my first book, and reflected at some depth upon my life thus far. 

Still, at that time, I was not able to adequately put into words my sense of loss, although, reflecting on what I had achieved in 43 years, when I was speaking to a friend I’d made whilst running Dungeons & Starships, who spelled out all of the things I’d done. It gave me a sense of self-worth again, but 25 years is a long time to live in emotional isolation, so simply reaching out to those people who mattered to me was not easy. 

Cultivating an always-chipper-don’t-give-a-fuck-about-others persona did not help me, and now, at a few weeks off hitting 55, I can see that. 

I don’t blame people for consigning me the trash, because, after all, that was what I’d been doing to others for a long time. 

 Researching and fact-checking for my book, confirmed what I had been told in 2003, and I know that the book touched a couple of people in a similar way to how it gave me a sense of catharsis, one sending me a simple ‘one liner’ which read ‘What a catalyst you turned out to be.’ 

Coming from someone I’d hero-worshipped since 1982, it meant a lot, but true to form in 2015, I still turned on them like a viper at the Triples wargames show, not realising that it would be the last time in this incarnation , that I would see or speak to them. 

This is something which makes me feel ashamed and at the same time fills me with sorrow. I even turned against my parents, and now, both having passed in the last 5 years with no warning, I am unable to make amends for the way I treated them both. 

 I am in the twilight of my years now, and it’s been on my mind that I should reach out to those people whom I owe an apology to, on behalf of that younger me. 

Doing so, has not been easy, and moreover, I have little expectation of forgiveness. That said, I want to be remembered as being man enough to admit my foibles, mistakes and downright antisocial attitude. 

 So, I am writing this in the hope that if some of those lost friends read this, it will go some way to achieving those aims, and apologise for all and anything I have done, without prejudice or attached caveats.

However, my 'safe place' has always been gaming. I'm certain beyond all doubt, that without gaming I would be in my grave instead of typing this blog and looking forward to taking August off for R&R. 

Gaming has been my Prozac and Valium. 

Now I need to do all I can to rebuild those friendships I lost and close other which have been toxic.