Come on Mr. Postman

I'm nervous about seeing the postman. It's 4.30 p.m. so he mustn't have had anything today, but still I have this horrible nervous feeling in my chest. I'm waiting for two potentially life changing pieces of mail. The first is the results of my first semester in the final year of my degree. I also think it is going to return the worst results I have had, which is scary beacause it pretty much defines my final degree classification. Anything worse than a 2:1 classification and frankly I have wasted 3 years of my life. I had a perfectly good career before I went to uni. I was a car salesman, and I was going places. They gave me a nice car, and I was earning around 25 thousand pounds a year. Not bad for a 21 year old. I often think it's bad to boast about money, but I'm proud of that so what the hell. I've nothing to show for all that money though, I blew it all. I had no rent to pay, and no bills, and I came away with nothing. You see, I had a really bad drink problem at the time - you think it's bad now, you should have seen me then. I was very drunk, all of the time, rediculously so. I drove to work one morning so drunk, when I pulled up at work, I got out of the car and fell over, to my knees. I didn't care, work didn't care. I was making them lots of money, I was making me lots of money, what was the problem? And then I went travelling for a couple of months and it gave me time to think about my life. It made me think about where I was going. I had issues. Being a closet puff can be very difficult. I was scared of telling people. That's what drove me to dink. When I look back now it was silly, but hindsight is a wonderful thing, at the time it was the worst thing in the world for me. I try to be rational, and look out of boxes, and I knew that there were other gay people who just get on with their lives, and have a great time, and that it would probably be just the same for me, but your mind can play horrible tricks on you, and I was scared my whole world was going to crumble in and I wouldn't cope. I had been depressed in the past and I never never want to go back their. I never wanted to lose people I loved again. One day I will ofcourse, but I could cope better now. I can see different avenues, and that there are people you can talk to. Their is nothing that can't be spoken about, what ever issues you have, get them off your chest. Their is no need to suffer in silence. If you have a problem, their is nothing better than talking about it, call a help line if you have to. Where was I? Ah yes travelling. So I worked out what I had to do to sort my life out. I even had a back up plan. When I got home I was going to tell all my close family and friends I was gay. It all happened in one night. I wanted to tell my Mum first, that was the most important thing. Then at the end of the night I got my best male friend to tell all my friends. This was about one in the morning, but it was the way I wanted it. I had to be in control here. I'm eternally grateful to my best mate that night. He phoned up all my friends, woke them, and then called me back to tell me how things went. Everyone was great. Brilliant in fact. People even bought me cards telling me how much they loved me, and that they still did. I couldn't believe it. I felt like the luckiest person alive (by the way my back up plan was, if it went wrong, I was going to live in Germany and start a new life - how my life could have been different now). I was going to go back to work, but I knew I couldn't tell them. They truly were homophobic and racist bastards. I thought I could cope being in the closet at work, but I had been so liberated by coming out of the closet at home, that slipping back into it had become a nightmare. So after a week I quit, and the next day I was attending lectures at University. I always told people that I quit being a car salesman because of the hours (60 a week), but I actually loved that job. I loved being good at it, I loved the buzz of success. It seemed like showing a weakness to me to tell people I was driven out because I was gay, it seems like I couldn't control the situation, and I couldn't. And I did hate working 60 hours a week. I hate prejudice in this world, I hate it's power. Every cloud has a silver lining, and I always wanted a degree to prove a couple of people wrong, so here I am. Back at uni tomorrow.
The other piece of post I'm waiting for is a letter from the Japanese embassy. I've applied to teach English in Japan for a year next year, and I really want to do it. This letter will tell me if I have progressed to the next recruitment stage and will be expected to attend an interview, and is due mid January (about now). If I'm not invited to interview, they send me nothing, I find that a bit harsh, and if I get nothing I really don't know what to do next. I need money, but don't feel ready to settle into a career. Bah!