Alternative

I spent the weekend with some alternative friends.

What a strange phrase that is, alternative to what? My regular friends? No, just a different grouping of people brought together by a different bond. Although I’d pause at saying some were friends, acquaintances perhaps? But that’s beside the point.

Just as my best friendships all stem from the time we spent together drinking with nurses doing charitable good deeds at Hospital Radio Lennox, so this other group of people are forming around the part of my life I don’t really talk about. In fact none of us really talk about it except to each other, mostly. That sounds very insular, in fact it’s largely the opposite.

There are other definitions of alternative, he said in an attempt to gloss over that last paragraph, and they suggest things which aren’t defined as being the norm.

Which is fine by me. I’ve always enjoyed being different, being on the edge of things rather than part of the crowd and the more I discover about myself, the more I realise it’s a fundamental part of who I am.

It’s easy to fall into a life which is comfortable and easy, that you end up with a happiness that you deserve. That’s no bad thing, but in the long run, for me, it wasn’t what I needed.

Change is never easy, and it’s taken me some time to come to understand how I fit in this little alternative world I find myself inhabiting, but after a couple of years I think I’m beginning to figure it out.

At least until the next new experience where, maybe, everything will change again and, if it does, that’s fine by me. I’ll figure it out and have fun whilst I do.