I feel differently about it now, because I've learnt (in the last 10 years), that it doesn't matter and that I should have seen it like my friends, my wife and my colleagues did, and that you should aim to be good at what you did, helped people and just be yourself, and let people be themselves (or whatever version of themselves they are/were wanting to be, at that point in time).
I (sometimes) think that there's two types of people (outside of those parts of society that work it to be whatever they need it to be):
1) Those who get money dropped into their bank accounts each month, for services provided.
2) And those who don't.
Those that don't are rich and are not fussed as others by class distinction. They aren't 'climbing', they are 'being'.
Those that do... Well, I've hinted at this, but the fact that I was council estate, and with a large family (7 kids), that majorly have succeeded in starting their own businesses and getting by, or working up to a good level in companies, getting degrees and Masters, we were hampered by the fact that a couple of family members were petty thieves, burglars, brawlers and all-week boozers. Us five collectively were the worst of those two in some people's eyes. We heard it and we felt it. None more so than me in my final interview to join the police. But that's a story for another day.
So by being poor, and by poor I mean, council house, free school dinners, school grant clothes, holidays to charity homes on the coast organised by social services, jumble sales and hand me downs, family members in the court files, teachers coming into classrooms, looking at the name tag inside the coat and removing it and returning it to the rightful owner, in full view of the class, did leave me with a sense of being sub-working class, up until I left school.
But I wouldn't change a thing about my childhood. I didn't want for anything, and when I wanted anything, my paper round, milk round, Saturday job, YTS, week's wages paid for it. We lived where we did because of my Mum and Dad's situation, not mine.
I remember a chat with my Mum one day, me all teary eyed, trying to explain to her that I didn't want "this", that I wanted something else. She held me tight and said "So do I son", "So did I".
It has left a fascination with how the right haircut, the right album under your arm, the right schmutter, elevated you. And to my close friends, that's how they described me, into music, into clothes, into looking good. I never did it to be better than them, I had an interest in it because it brought me enjoyment (and maybe escape). My music and clothes were always shared, and a lot of it wasn't returned. But that's cool.
Nowadays, I see people for what they are like, not what they've got.
Sorry for not making sense, I simply can't articulate it any more. I have feelings about it but I don't engage with it any more, at all. I've stop seeing it, I've dropped it. Completely.
I live in a world now where I'm trying to prolong the things I enjoy - family connections, friend connections, time with my wife, a nice meal, a nice bottle of wine, my music horizon, whilst probably not wider, is extremely deep. I'm a mid-50s man negotiating the final quarter of his life.
Though I'm a bit ashamed about it made me feel and how I handled it, held myself back and how I had the totally wrong idea about some people and their motives, especially in a work setting.
Apologies for the muddiness Anchor, wish I could be clearer.