Chapter three · Young Adult · 1993–1998
Work, black coffee, queer theory, proper friends and a pillar-box-red Ford Escort. I was learning to assemble a life rather than wait for one to be issued.
How to read the pictures: the Bitmoji are visual shorthand for ideas, moods and transitions. They are not a literal photographic record.
Content note: this chapter refers to family violence and pressure surrounding a court hearing, without graphic detail.
Part one
01
Be kind to your mind. That was my philosophy after leaving Sue’s care. Not a demand to have everything resolved—permission to give my brain time, space and better inputs.
South Derbyshire offered a lot of nature and room to explore: caves, reservoirs and a different route to the sea. From Birmingham, the beach had meant Weston-super-Mare. From here, the nearest beach was Skegness. Same urge, different coast.
02
I dropped out of college after a year because the UCAS form expected me to know which courses to apply for. Nobody had helped me build the map needed to answer it.
I took a dead-end job in a textile factory sewing knickers because it would give me time to consider what I actually wanted. A few months later I was promoted to supervisor: my ideas for reducing seconds and waste had saved time and money. I helped the women use the new systems and checked garments throughout production.
03
Until eighteen, coffee had always been offered with milk and I did not like it. Then came a cold morning, no teabags and a fridge bereft of milk. Sad Marie put extra sugar in the cup, added hot water and reluctantly tried it.
Revelation: Ree really likes black coffee. Marie also likes lattes, cappuccino and even espresso—but still does not like flat white. I mainlined caffeine from dawn to bedtime for the next thirty years.
04
I was still sorting presentation, attraction and identity into separate boxes. I was pretty damned sure I was gay. Certainty inside my head was one thing; finding a private, safe opportunity to test the theory was another.
Part two
05
I was saying, “I think I am gay.” But when a man asked me on a date, I said yes because I was flattered that he had asked. Accepting the invitation measured how good it felt to be noticed and chosen; it did not necessarily tell me who I was attracted to.
06
I accepted dates from any guy who asked. The invitation itself was flattering, and saying yes gave me an approved social script to follow. It made my outward behaviour look less uncertain than the question still running inside me.
07
There was language, community and a visible world in Birmingham. Unfortunately, my uncle and cousin were both active on the scene too. Public visibility did not automatically create private freedom.
08
Whenever I tried to venture out and explore, I ran into my relatives or somebody who knew them. I would slink home again. The desire did not vanish; the local route simply lacked the privacy I needed.
Part three
09
I worked as an administrative clerk for an NHS mental-health team, then as an accounts and payroll clerk for a packaging company. Systems were everywhere: forms, wages, handovers, records and the gap between what a process claimed to do and what people actually needed.
10
The factory job may have looked like a dead end, but I had chosen it as thinking space. Boredom gave me time to see the production system. My “good ideas” were practical pattern recognition: less waste, fewer seconds and an easier process for the people doing the work.
11
Black coffee stopped being one cold-morning discovery and became infrastructure. Dawn to bedtime was entirely reasonable—according to the version of my nervous system being fuelled by coffee.
12
During my A-levels I worked three catering jobs to pay my rent and bills. Most classmates lived with their parents, although a few were mature students and we became friends.
Eventually I decided I wanted to be a social worker. Once the destination had a name, forms and work could become routes towards it.
Part four
13
I learned how to make friends whose connection did not depend on sharing a classroom, workplace or postcode. I kept in touch because I wanted them in my life, not because proximity kept putting us in the same room.
14
Some became friends I kept for the rest of their lives. Continuity was something we made deliberately: calls, visits, invitations, shared plans and returning after life had moved us apart.
I was so grateful to have real friends that I may also have been quite the over-pleaser. When belonging has felt scarce, gratitude can quietly turn into earning your place over and over again.
15
During this phase Simon beat me up. I had not done anything; he said he was in a bad mood. While I was at the hospital seeking treatment, he went to my home and smashed that too.
Before the court hearing, Simon told Mum not to attend or she would be choosing between her children. She believed that framing and refused to attend, despite having been subpoenaed—told to attend.
This matters later. It was an early visible turn in one of Simon’s negative cycles: violence and damage, followed by pressure on Mum that diverted accountability. Eventually, I walked away from the cycle.
16
I honed my English barbecue skills and considered myself proficient with a grill or flame. Food gave a gathering a purpose, a rhythm and something useful for my hands to do.
I enjoyed trips with friends, siblings or whoever came along. I also enjoyed travelling alone to recharge. Company and solitude were both genuine pleasures.
Part five
17
Solo trips gave me space to recharge. Being on my own was not a failed version of travelling with friends. It was its own kind of freedom—and often the fastest route back to myself.
18
Once I decided on social work, I made a quick trip to Plymouth to visit the campus and applied for its Social Work and Social Policy course. Despite poor A-level results, I scraped a place.
Dad’s response was: “I hope you don’t expect me to pay for that.” Another parent might have congratulated their child. I received useful information about the support I should not build my plan around.
I had to defer my place for a year. Otherwise, the financial assessment would have been based on Dad’s earnings even though he refused to help at all. Waiting meant the calculation could be based on my own earnings instead—meagre, but actually available to me.
19
I had always loved flying kites. Sue introduced me to flying them on hills. I bought better and better kites, then travelled to kite festivals, Bristol’s balloon festival, music events and whatever else looked worth following.
A small pleasure gained equipment, terrain, skill and community. That is how an interest becomes an expedition.
20
I learned to drive and bought my first car: a pillar-box-red Ford Escort lovingly restored to new condition by Uncle Phil, who owned a body shop and remained my car guy for most of my young adult life.
The roads widened into early overseas travel. I was proud to take Mum away with Adam when he was around six, staying at a caravan site through a Sun £10 holiday. A friend brought her family, which then included my little sister, who was being fostered by her best friend’s mum.
I was learning to assemble a life from useful work, chosen people, portable comforts and places worth travelling towards.
The map in my ears
The playlist is not a claim about everything released between 1993 and 1998. It is the music from that era that reached me—the tracks attached to work, friends, identity, travel and becoming.
Follow my selection, or let your own memories and ears take you elsewhere.
Listen to Young Adult · 1993–19981998
Leaving the familiar map
I had babysat cousins, siblings and neighbours’ children since I was twelve. When my friends grew up and started popping out babies, I cared for them alongside Adam—built-in friends for him, and a growing network of people to look after.
My weekends were usually spent in one of two modes: caring for other people or recharging. Both were necessary. One used the skills; the other restored the person using them.
This prepared me to become an au pair in ways that went far beyond basic childcare. Adam was autistic. My cousin’s son—the same age as Adam—has Asperger’s and was profoundly deaf, so I was learning BSL to communicate with him.
In turn, they taught me patience: how to present the same information in different ways, notice what communication method worked, and help a child regulate rather than simply demand compliance.
Future echo, around 2023: in Michigan’s central Bible Belt, I finally found a white picket fence—and dragged a stick along ALL of it.
This period had quietly assembled the tools for success in the USA: childcare, adaptive communication, regulation, friendship, self-directed travel and the ability to build a working life from whatever was available.
Next: Michigan · 1999–2004