Adjective Failure

I have gone for coffee with some people I went to school with. Primary school.  On average, we meet together as a group every five years or so.  Get togethers consist of two factions - the failures and the successes.

Both groups apply this label to themselves due to their life circumstances, or events that have happened to them.  It's interesting to watch which group we each, discreetly and some less so, align ourselves to.

Here I am, at another gathering, hurtling towards 36 years of age.  I still don't and never have had a mortgage.  I don't drive and again, never have and never will own a car.  My television is ancient.  My furniture is second hand.  I've never had a facial and the idea terrifies me, I last had my hair cut in 2008 and I don't own a single garment (excluding underwear) that hasn't been previously loved.  I chose to side step what may have been viewed as a high profile career rather than "just a job", taking substantially lower paid work, and then binned the whole thing to hang out with my kids.  I have had a number of relationships that haven't lasted.  I have two children by two dads.  I've been homeless, I've been (and still am) mental, I've been skint, I've got two kids who I have mostly raised on my own.

I have always thought that that signified failure, and of the highest order.  Can't keep a relationship. Can't get back into work. Don't do girlie stuff.  Can't supply new stuff for my kids.

And then, as I came away, having sat and smiled at them, a thought ran through my head.  One of the group is very high up in a named corporation.  He owns a very large house.  He visits a tailor.  He has an extremely good car.  He is, outwardly, extremely successful

He has also been single for 14 years, spending that time sniffing after any female that so much as flashes him a grin, having grim flirtations that never materialise into anything more.  He's never lived with a woman that wasn't his mum.  He has a big house that he has no idea what to do in, that he rattles around in accumulating (expensive) stuff that he doesn't use or need, has a flash car and nice suits. 

I have had several failed relationships, but at least I was in the game to begin with.  I've had terrible relationships, but I trusted myself to try again.  I have two lovely kids that appreciate the value of money, and appreciate time doing things more.  I've lived in lots of places, all over the country, and have made friends in areas that I wouldn't otherwise have made.  I've been far outside my comfort zone, and I've survived.

If you're still in the same place you were ten years ago; emotionally, physically, socially; if you're still making the same psychological mistakes, if you don't at the least know why you are how you are, why you do what you do, I'd seriously suggest you enrobe yourself with an adjective that isn't success.

And no. I don't fancy him. He's a loser.