The Oldest Teenager on Earth

I'm feeling very physically and mentally tired. I've had a dreadful night's sleep. I went to bed late and was woken before five in the morning by a neighbour rowing in the street with his girlfriend. I think the fear and anxiety that this shouting and banging had engendered in my sleep transferred to my thoughts about meeting Heather this coming Tuesday and I couldn't get back to sleep for the worry racing around my mind. Although I had come to like Heather very much and to value her very highly before these damned feelings erupted, I can't see any way forward for our friendship that is good for me. I suspect the degree of emotional intimacy we had attained previously will now feed my delusion and build false hope, but if we fall back to small talk there is no friendship any more. And if I stop this friendship I lose a very good friend. Given

And I know how upset I will feel when we part that afternoon.

Oh lucky Patrick.

What makes me particularly sad contemplating not only this situation, which I so wish I could have avoided, but also generally contemplating my life, is that I should have been what is commonly called an alpha male - I had so many of the characteristics to be so, build, height, intelligence, and once, confidence, forwardness and independence of mind, but my psychology was so thoroughly and effectively undermined that I ended up this negligible timid weakling, and what is worse, I conspired in it instead of fighting it as most people would, and I have only realised now.

In a way  I'm going through a very belated adolescence, realising the faults of my parents, falling into unrequited love, thinking what decisions I should have made, thinking how I should have looked out for the society of people my own age, realising and aching to go back and leave a family I can never now leave, feeling the feelings I should have felt when I was 16. But instead of them propelling me into the independence of early adulthood, they have come near the end of middle age where they make me ready to be a young man just in time to be an sickly old one.

Dad, why did you do this to me? I hate you almost as much as I hate myself.