It was never an intention of mine to lose my own history, I didn't see it happening, but luckily I have spotted it, hopefully before it's too late. It wasn't til about four or five years ago I realised I was telling stories (usually way into the early hours, a bit pissed and stoned) about my life that were, well, they should have been memorable! But they are becoming obsolete in my memory bank, because I lost touch with the people in them, and the environments where they happened, and they stopped getting repeated. This is how people lose history, when they lose community, move away from their roots. For some, possibly me, this was about making a 'fresh start' at times, but the consequence, perhaps desired one at the start, is that no-one knows who you really are. They don't know your story.
The result for me, has been isolation. All the years I was with my children, they were my strongest link to my past, their father the second strongest, my family next and then really only a couple of old friends. When I moved from the South East to the South West aged 30, with three young children, no-one knew anything about me, other than what I chose to tell them. Everything else pretty much went.
What I chose to tell them included stories, I gave them a history, a context to put me in. My story was mainly, at that time, about drugs, and the relationship I had with them. I had an identity with which to start over, a whole bunch of tales to substantiate, I suddenly had another life, completely self defined by my own version of events, at that particular time. In fact, I was just cleaning up and starting again.
What I want to write is some of the stories, but also how stories change. My story is not about drugs, but about me. Everyone takes drugs, there is only one me, so now to come clean.
