Year of your life?

[RivaOni]

What has, so far, been the year of your life?

For me its 2002. Although '02 was good and bad really but it made me who I am today.

It started off with a great big BANG, Lostprophets and [SPUNGE] at Rock City New Years Eve, drunker than a streetbum, doing some kind of ring dance on a VERY slippery floor before spilling out of the club into the early hours of the morning with ice everywhere and no top on. I've still not found that top!

Soon after it went into a low, I was having problems personally, I had not long ago been diagnosed as depressed and ended up dropping college within weeks of returning back from the Christmas Holidays. I sank deeper and deeper but discovered a love for various bands, I was already a big fan of Muse and Feeder from my many many long hours on PSO, aswell as System of a Down and other bands.

But During this period, I discovered A, Hundred Reasons, Hell is for Heroes, InMe among others. I'd frequently sit up all night on the internet posting on PSOtakus (and later in the year here) and chatting on the old MSN chatrooms.

I got talking to a few girls and started meeting up with a couple, which also lead to my first relationships, which were all, quite frankly, failures aside from one but I'll come back to that later.

By my 18th Birthday, I'd split up with girlfriend number 4, and had another girl showing smoe interest in me, but she was a friend of my little sister (who's 2 years younger than me) so that was a no-go. For my 18th I got a really great present from my sister, a ticket to the "Distortion Festival 2002" at Wollaton Park in Nottingham, this was the first, and only festival I'd been to, and it was fantastic, the day started with a ska-punk band called Capdown and all was sunny and bright. The Levellers appeared a short wihle later, with a dijaridoo, and it started to bucket it down with rain. the rain was on and off for some of the day, and I remember it being really heavy while Idlewild were playing. I'd read about them but not had chance to listen to them just yet, I thought they were fantastic, despite the mess up at the start of their slot where the singer started singing something else and the band playing another song. A were great, I was stood in the mosh-pit to start with with my mates girlfriend, but she got knocked over so I dragged her out of there, he was doing security for the show, hence why she stuck with me for the day, we actually became really close friends during that year but it fell apart before the end of the year!

I almost caught a frisbee thrown out of the second stage from Rival School, and put up with the noise of Raging Speedhorn. Hundred Reasons were also fantastic and I sung along to every single one of their songs, having bought their album on a whim only a month previously. Iggy Pop later "performed" and by performed I mean just spent his hour long set swearing at the kids..

Then Green Day appeared, this was "Shenanigans" era Green Day, and their was loads of kids with their hair sprayed green (how original) I'd not seen a show anything like this before, the closest I'd got was seeing Michael Jackson on TV when I was a kid! I almost got the neck to Mike Dirnt's bass after the show had finished but a girl who flashed her boobs at one of the security staff got it instead.

Oh, almost forgot, The Wildhearts played, and recorded their Vanilla Radio video at this festival, in which I could be spotted watching.

My friend who was a security guard also worked in a couple of bars, he was taking a year out before going to France to study so he spent alot of time working, and as I said previously, his girlfriend and I became good friends, and started going to gigs together quite frequently.

After a while, she finished with him, he was heart broken and she started saying things to me, and other friends of mine, that sounded like she was interested in me, probably because of how often we saw each other and how we could talk to each other easily. So one night, during an hilariously drunken night out in which I tried to pay to get into a club with a packet of condoms (I went in the wrong compartment of my wallet and instead of taking out a £5 note, I took them out and didn't even look) to which the bouncer replied "Your not gonna get lucky with us son" and laughed, anyway back on subject, while in this bar, I recieved a text frmo her asking if I wanted to meet her at The Alley Cafe ( a bar I used to frequent for Absinthe), I text back saying I was out with James (the lad she'd just finished with) and that I felt she was interested in me, that I liked her, but only as friends and if I did like as more than that it would never happen as I'd been friends with James for years.

We didn't really speak much after that.

September this place launched and I also met my fiance, Chixie, in the same manner as I'd met previous girlfriends, online. She didn't live in Nottingham though, but she would come over for the weekend after 6th form to visit.

By this time, my step dad was starting to get annoyed with my depression not improving, and stated kicking up huge arguments. My mum decided it was time for me to leave and probably move back into my Dads, which wasn't really an option for me as I'd had a falling out with my Step Mum about her son, he was stealing from everyone in the house, except from me, then getting rid of his own stuff so I would get the blame.

It was an emergency, so I phoned Chixie, she asked her mum if I could move in with them, she said yes and the rest as they say, is history. Not only did I spend my first christmas away from my family in another county, I didn't see them until about 3 months afterwards.