Life is Challenging

...and I'd like to share my experiences with you, this will be a very open blog as I expect there are so many blogs out there nowadays that its very hard for individual blogs to get attention so if I write this to no one it doesn't matter because I write it for myself and to myself for personal reflection and growth.I am currently on a journey, we are all on it, the journey of life. I am currently working in a factory job that offers little or no meaning to my life. It's a pay cheque, one I need to clear outstanding debts and...build a future.I'm recently married and thats what you are suppose to do, build a future with your partner. Building a future usually involves building a house, having kids, putting them through school and working in a job that provides the income to do that even if it provides little or no stimulation, mental or otherwise.So here I am 24 years of old with no qualifications, working in a factory, starting life with my new wife. I currently have little or no obligations but when there is a child on the scene I would then be obligated to stay in my job to provide a source of income to my 'family'.At the moment I have 'choice', a very powerful tool that can change the face of the world in the blink of an eye. We all make our choices and I could choose to make different choices if I so wish. They say that nothing that is truly real can be taken away from you, to understand that statement to its fullest you have to apply it in very open minded terms even to areas like the loss of a loved one through death or just separation.Well I have come to a point in my life where I can say that even though I am working in a factory/mill and I finish every day smelling of fish feed, that I am happy. Happy is a relative term and to me I can constitute my current state as happy because before this I was living away from my family earning a good pay cheque with no one to go home to at the end of the day. Without connection, life is nothing. without the people we connect to we have nothing and are living a life without meaning. Anyway the old life got me down and I knew I had to change it. For years I feared the idea of change because I thought I had it alright, I had friends who would get drunk with me, I had a social life and a good pay cheque. I also had the life of a goldfish in a circular bowl, beyond routine I was getting nowhere, I was working towards nothing, the fulfillment in life simply wasn't there.Change can be a frightening thing but I came to fear more the idea of continuing to live a life unfulfilled than a life filled with change. So I cut loose and became a prostitute, really its what I always wanted to do and I quickly learned the financial and physical rewards were great...ok only joking on the last point, just lightening the tone. I decided that it was time to go travelling. A very common regret of older people is 'I wish I travelled when I was younger when I had no responsibilities'. Well, many an older person passed this advice on to me until bells started ringing and I knew I had to change things. It was September 2004 and I had been dating a South American girl, more specifically Peruvian, for about six months. It was one of these seesaw relationships, the highs were great but they started to be outweighed by the lows. At points I was head over heels with her but the constant criticisms drove me to break up with her. It was a hard thing to let go of something that on paper everyone looks for in a partner. She was funny,beautiful, great personality, great job and active. Just because on paper someone looks ideal and even if your friends,family and passing strangers tell you that you've hit the jackpot, just remember, you are the one that goes home to them at the end of the day so your opinion is the only relevant one.So I broke up with her and with that breaking up I made another promise to myself, I would save up to see the world, or at least a bit of it. This wasn't an empty promise to myself this time, there had to be change for my very soul yearned it.For the next seven or eight months I kept my head down and put in all the overtime I could. I went out social drinking three or four nights a week till closing but still kept a level head for work. I had something to work towards but there was still a void that needed to be filled and it was temporarily through either the comfort of a pint or the comfort of an ex I stayed close to.Come May 2005 I had enough money to travel comfortably for six months and more. I handed in my notice and drew a line in the sand. Nothing could stop me now, I had my ticket to Ireland on the 5th of May and after a brief respite I would set off to Thailand on the 15th of May. I would be a lone traveller but a friendly who would surely meet friends along the way.The night before I leave Jersey I get a decent enough send off by my friends. 'Mad with it', 'tanked', 'pissed' or whatever you choose to call it, I had too much too drink but there was nothing to knew with that. I am one of those well behaved drunks who is let in everywhere regardless of how straight I am not walking because I have the reputation of causing no trouble and never giving a bouncer hassle. Five years in Jersey and never a trouble.When the night finished after 2am I hung around outside the nightclub in the usual last chance lottery that keeps most single men hanging about. Saw an ex workmate of mine, one I worked with in my first job in Jersey, went over to talk to him solely because he was talking to two relatively fit women. I tapped his face with my hand as a friendly/anooying gesture that I regularly practise with a close friend. He doesn't seem so keen and punches me in the stomach. Boy that hurt, after a few seconds the pain subsides and I am...Waking up with a light shining in my eyes. I have passed out in front of the nightclub, I seem to have pissed myself and a policeman is shining a light in my eyes. Not only that, my face hurts. I am carried into an ambulance on my last night in Jersey with a flight to catch the next day at 2pm.