Masculinity?

I’ve always had a strange relationship with masculinity.

There’s a feeling that rises inside me when I think about it. It’s almost like shame. It’s almost like childhood. It still makes me uncomfortable.

“You’re too soft.”

“You need to toughen up.”

“You’re a strange child.”

I’m 10 years old again, at a family Christmas, wondering where the hell I fit into all of this.

Terrified of the room full of deep voices as laughter and the smell of beer draw me in.

I was the more sensitive of two twin boys raised by a single Mum.

Learning to shape his masculinity in fragments, from men he was scared of in rooms he didn’t feel safe in.

How do I learn to be like that when I feel all of this?

I’ve been asking myself that question ever since.

Most people learn from their parents and update their understanding as time and life experiences shape their identities.

I looked to the men around me. I saw similarities between them.

Confident, willing to stand up for themselves, hard workers.

I was in awe of that.

But what always struck me more was how emotionally stunted they all felt to me.

There was never talk of fear, or sadness.

Nobody ever talked about how an experience had made them feel.

That’s literally all I want to talk about!

But I did learn the power of humour in those rooms.

If I was making people laugh I was safe.

All the while, slowly interpreting masculinity as something fundamentally unavailable to me.

As my teenage years led to the discoveries of football, girls and beer - I started to feel like there might be a place for me after all.

It was short lived.

The boys around me were developing into the men from my childhood.

They became tougher, more confident, more sure of their directions in life.

I was still just scared to exist.

What do I do with all this feeling?

My twenties taught me numbness. Antidepressants I’m not sure I ever needed levelled out my system enough that I developed a drinking habit and called it coping.

A family cycle I’d been hurt by and deep down wanted to break.

But this is what the adults do.

I found safety in knowing there was a drink at the end of the day.

Drowning my feelings each night, one beer at a time.

Then came my thirties. My lowest ebb.

30 years old, lost, dissociated, in denial about my habits.

The question became unavoidable.

Who the fuck am I?

Pain dominated my identity.

I still had no idea how to survive with all this feeling.

In that moment I found a strength that took me by surprise.

What can we do to fix this?

And I got to work.

And it IS work.

But it is worth it.

Because the only person that can teach you who you really are is you.

When I stripped back the layers I didn’t hate all of what I saw.

My resilience, my warmth, my humour, my empathy.

The same qualities that had made me feel so scared my whole life were the things that made me most proud to be me.

So. What have I learned at thirty four?

That masculinity feels fickle to me.

I was the sensitive kid that felt there wasn't a version of manhood he fitted into.

Now I’m the sensitive man that knows he doesn't need a title to feel whole.

And sure, I took the long way round.

And sometimes I cry and find trees pretty.

But that ten year old kid needed me to become the role model he was looking for.

I needed to learn that sensitivity wasn’t weakness before I could show him a better way.

I hope he likes what he sees.

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