How much do you have in common with your 16 year old self?

11 years have passed since I turned 16.  My birthday was my last day of high school - well, the last day of classes in high school, I had exams among other things in time after that day.  I had a few close friends who despite telling them pretty much everything else, never knew I was gay.  I was in a class with guys I didn't connect with partly because I kept everyone at a distance from me but partly because they kept a distance from me too which at the time I was quite grateful for.  Outside school I lived in a small town which didn't have a lot to do for young people, and being under 18 in the UK a lot of things were off limits.  I wasn't the sort of kid that flouted those kinds of laws and neither were the guys I hung around with at the time.  I was planning on going to college, and the plan after that was University.

Fast forward to today and high school which was a nightmare for me in many respects is well behind me.  College was a lot more enjoyable than I thought it would be and I met a lot of people I really connected with which really brought me out of my shell.  I went to University in the end but the degree I chose turned out to be a disappointment.  It wasn't anything like I imagined it would be and it didn't help me with my career prospects at all.  I had a few jobs since and learned a lot, the long period between graduation and my first actual job [full time, not part time as the others were] was long.  For a time I thought I would be unemployed forever but that was pessimism at it's core.  While the jobs I had did not work out, they did teach me a lot about who I am and more importantly they showed me where my limits really were and what I can do.  I know now what I am capable of and what I am not and that will work to my benefit in future.

My circle of friends was almost completely replaced only 2 managed to survive the cull and they became closer to me than anyone.  When I came out to my friends, those that supported me stayed and those that didn't I cut off.  It was a shame that I had to say goodbye to everyone that I did but it was needed for me to be comfortable with who I was.  I focus on the negatives enough myself I don't need other people to make me feel worse about that.  The 2 that managed to stay are the 2 people I have known the longest and beyond them others that entered my life went through periods where they either accepted who I was or they feigned interest for a while then lost contact.  Today I am happy with my circle of friends because they all know the real me and I can tell them anything.

I am in many ways different from the person I was when I was 16, but there are many things that still hold true.  We still share the same interests, while they have grown and others have been added, I still enjoy the games, movies, and TV shows I did when I was 16.  My taste in food has evolved, and become a little more extreme.  I always loved spicy food but as I have got older I like it even hotter.  The things I liked I've revelled in and the things I didn't like I've abandoned almost completely.  My music taste has fluctuated a bit, I do still listen to some of what I listened to back then but a lot of it was quite depressing so that's become less of a staple for me.

I would say I am a lot happier than I was back then.  16 was by no means my lowest point, that was several years before and the recovery from it was slow and at times an uphill climb that I struggled with.  I have a fair bit left to climb to become the person I want to be at the top of the hill, but that climb has been made easier by the people in my life and by the mentality that I have adapted.  Being so open about my life and bearing all to people made me vulnerable but it also made me braver for it.  I'm not the person I was, and I don't have a lot in common with him anymore but deep down we are the same.  The layers change and the fashion is restyled but at it's core, the heart that beats is the same heart.