I've revealed my apprehensions about going to my 20 year Reunion to alot of people. I had a pretty rough time back in high school. Hell, I guess it started way back in second grade. Bullies. Daily beatings on the bus ride home from kids in the neighborhood that I thought could have shared a friendship with me on some level. Others had similar experiences, and a few of them came out last night. I believe they came for the same reason I did. To kill a demon.
My particular demon, Mike (who incidentally liiks remarkably like a SLIGHTLY taller Danny DeVito now), walked into the bar shortly after I did. I didn't see him, but I "felt" him. It was weird. Like the bruises on my arms were still there and still sore. When I did actually see him, our eyes met, and the past flooded my mind like a migraine headache. And then it happened.
He walked up to me with his little "mask" and asked,"Hey, Jim, how have you been?"
I said, "Good, all those scars and bruises you gave me for eleven years are pretty healed up now. I have a lush head of hair, and am pretty physically fit. How are YOU?"
He started to walk away, and I followed him and continued, "You know," I said, "I've been waiting 20 years to call you an asshole, but I see you've got more important things to worry about than the skinny kid you used to beat on."
I brought the man to TEARS. One of the only mean things I've done to another human being in my life, and you know what? As bad as it sounds, it felt good.
The saddest part of that whole story? That at his age...he still hasn't become a man. That he couldn't pony-up, hold out his hand and acknowledge all he had done. That he couldn't even muster up big enough testicles to just say, "I'm sorry."
And now, he gets to carry that burden instead of me. And that's good. It's perfect, actually. Carry that load he will...until he sets it down and makes an attempt to make things right. Can he ever make up for the things he's done? Probably not. But without an attempt, his heart is doomed. You know it. I know it and so does he.
Some of you know that I've got an autobiography of sorts in the making for years now, and after last night, I just may be able to finish my story. In it I worte....
Ironically, my bullies were the same kids I was friends with in Kindergarden. Brian, Mike, Dan, Ron. The kids I built forts out of sheets and picnic table benches in the back yard with. The kids I played "Cowboys and Indians" with in the woods with cap guns and paper roll caps. The kids I laughed with, saw movies with, went to birthday parties with.
Now, they were the kids beating me black and blue. Breaking my fingers. Hitting me in the gut so hard I coudn't breathe. Cornering me in my seat on the bus and repeatedly hitting me as hard as they could.
They tried to make me cry. I never did. I remained silent and saved the tears for that night when I lay in my bed. Contemplating running away. Or worse, suicide. Grimm and I talked about it briefly.
I'll never understand what motivates children to be so mean to one of their own like that. A kid that was their FRIEND for f***'s sake. 'Et tu, Brute?'
One often wonders were one would be if their childhood was different. If THEY were the ones who scored the winning goal. If THEY were the ones that got the prettiest girl in the school. If THEY were the ones who had their lives served to them on a shiney silver platter and fed to them with an equally shiney spoon.
"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Bullshit. It just makes you jaded. It makes you sick to your stomach with the lies, deceit and betrayal life has an abundance of. What good did I recieve from the (what would turn out to be) YEARS of torment and beatings? Perhaps by the end of this writing I'll have an answer. Or you will and you can tell me what you came up with. Right now, however, my mind is blank.
My mind is no longer blank. Ladies and gentlemen, this book has an ending....and it's pretty fvcking good.
Copy & paste to friend: (Click inside box; Ctrl + C to copy; Ctrl + V to paste)
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read more blogs!
Blogs by j_goose:
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| Facing Demons, Putting it at Rest, and the 20 Years it Took to Get Here.... |
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Merchitown
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Aug 8 @ 12:00PM
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A long time in the making, glad that for you, this chapter had an ending, a resolution. I'm a little jealous. 
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EagleEric
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Aug 8 @ 12:07PM
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Interesting post. I had a lot of male friends as a kid mostly tough guys. Bullies never bothered me due to being afraid of me. But I never bullied anyone.
I've always been a self motivated and reliant person not really dependent upon anyone's approval. This makes a big difference. Many kids seek from others what they can't get at home from their parents. When you look to others to fill your emotional void, you lose their respect.
So it's always the issue of confidence and independence Vs dependency and neediness!
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Tunes4u
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Aug 8 @ 12:14PM
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Nice post Goose....
Maybe I'll go back to mine...hell...it's only been 41 years....
I could maybe find Fred.....give him a "botch" on the back of his damn head and see how he likes it. Probably why I am bald now, the bastid.....
~*~
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Snappygoddess
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Aug 8 @ 12:26PM
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Bullying pisses me off more then anything I know.....I used to get picked on too.. because there were 8 of us kids and we wore hand me downs... we were always clean and had manners, behaved in school but that didn't matter.. we were still bullied until word got around that one of the other siblings or a few of us would seek retaliation... then the bullying stopped 
I'm sorry you were abused by your peers.. truth be told.. they were probably victims of child abuse by their parents and that was how they got their aggression out... to bully others. That may not be much comfort when you are a kid and getting the ever lovin snot beat out of you but as an adult, perhaps it can help explain why bullies do the things they do.
Congrats to you for coming out on top 
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dharmaseeker
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Aug 8 @ 12:26PM
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Not fifteen miles from my home is the hell hole redneck school I attended for just shy of twelve years. I wasn't beat up but I was the butt of every joke, the subject of every cruel idea, the fat kid who everybody treated like crap. There's simply no way to describe how such treatment from the third grade to the twelfth does to the self esteem of a kid whose mother was verbally abusive, family was going to hell in a handbasket, and dad stayed as out of the picture as he could and live in the same house.
That was almost forty years ago. It took a long time for me to get over that school but I still refer to Hudson as Hell. The truth is, though, I would not recognize anyone I went to school with if I met them. Many are dead. Some are "leading citizens" of our town. Only one guy that I know of who was one of the few who wasn't an asshole do I know about and talk to sometimes where he works at Home Depot.
I never did hate those people. I tried to hate them but hate is not in me. I did resent them for a long time. And it took longer for me to get over my insecurities. I turned to religion. I hoped to see them all "saved." I moved through life more confused about why they treated me as they did than I ever was vengeful of them.
Hudson was one of those country schools all on one campus with a couple thousand kids in first to twelfth. It was a place of prejudice and bigotry. No black people and very few Hispanics dared live in the district up until the eighties. It was the epitome of every redneck school ever shown on TV. Since there no minorities to pick on an insecure fat kid had to do.
I wouldn't go to a reunion of that school for anything but I don't resent those folks any longer. I can sympathize with your problem. The difference is that the bully was pretty much the whole school. There's not one person to put blame on. Some of the worst are dead and I think one or two went to the pen.
Why is it that people act the way they do in school? What makes a bully a bully? Do we do any good hating or resenting or do we just damage ourselves? They probably needed to hear about the damage he'd done. No, it probably will not matter. Either he knows it but, like you said, is too much of a coward to admit it or whatever you had to say meant nothing to him.
I always come back to that eternal question: why do human beings choose conflict over peace?
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RightWingRepublican
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Aug 8 @ 12:26PM
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He will carry around that guilt and you get to be free now. 
Those are scars that we seem to carry into adulthood. And it's rare we get to confront those who hurt us.
I'm glad you feel better. You deserve to.
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ragtopcookie
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Aug 8 @ 12:34PM
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Years ago...i went to my ten year reunion......and what i found was....even after that much time had passed....a few wanted to relive a few of the things that kept us apart in our youth.....as much as i tried to ignore it....i gave into my youth...and one by one.....i told each of them i came here to meet and greet.....not to fight.....but if anybody would like to really relive those high school days......we could meet out in the parking lot and take off where we left off.....and i would kick the living shit out of whoever wanted it.....just like high school.....one by one...they backed down......i ended up leaving early......told myself i would never come back.....so i heard at our twentyth reuinion...the cops had to be called.....guess a few decided not to back down that time........just glad i wasnt there to see or relive it......i put those days away once i graduated......and moved on and away years ago.......cookie
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oceanlover734
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Aug 8 @ 12:39PM
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Glad you can feel some closure. ~*~
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misschoos
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Aug 8 @ 1:11PM
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~*~
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missliss78
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Aug 8 @ 1:27PM
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I said, "Good, all those scars and bruises you gave me for eleven years are pretty healed up now. I have a lush head of hair, and am pretty physically fit. How are YOU?"
Love it.
Absolutely awesome.
~*~
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Redwicket
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Aug 8 @ 1:30PM
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Yes, I do believe that most of us at some time or another were picked on...you struck a blow for all of us.
What felt good was that, One you as an adult stood up to the bully instead of caving into the "Nice" mask...and Two you got him to acknowledge what he did by his tears.
You don't Need to hear the words "I'm Sorry" the tears spoke Volumes...
At times I think..."It's Good to be Me", Now...Isn't it Good to be You?
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Fender
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Aug 8 @ 2:06PM
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"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Bullshit. It just makes you jaded.
I really like that. In fact, I like the whole blog.
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KathyPa1951
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Aug 8 @ 2:56PM
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Thank you goose for posting. I was in the out crowd one of those misfits. I have never had any desire to return to my high school in Calif. I never had a date. Was laughed at and made fun of too.I have one friend from there who I am still in contact with. I do not want to be friends with those ppl. I have made peace with myself and dont need them. I have made contact with some that were also the misfits and in the out crowd and they feel the same as me. They are good ppl at heart just not the good looking physical fit ones. I graduated in 1969 and never once got a notice of a hs reunion.
Kathy
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Fayvorite
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Aug 8 @ 3:07PM
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Your post made me so happy for you to get that opportunity yet I still see one more opportunity you could miss.
If you think it takes a man with testicles to have apologized, wouldn't it make you that much more of a great man to send him an apology for stooping to his level and hurting him too. Actually that might hurt a bit more if he is able to grasp it.
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lazareth
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Aug 8 @ 4:22PM
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Oh God... I damn near started crying over this.
The chit that happened to me in school, from middle school to high school. Damn, I hated school and the people.
I ate lunch outside by myself.... every goddamn day. I had no friends. I wasn't rich enough, didn't dress in all the cool clothes, mommy and daddy didn't buy me a car as soon as I turned 16... I hated that damn school.
I was the one that kicked the asses of every bully that picked on someone smaller than them. And the dumbasses never knew what was coming becuse they weren't looking for ME to come kick their ass. I would just walk up out of the blue and nail their ass and say " This is for So and So, and I dare ya to touch 'em again" ....
No I wasn't the bully... I was the goddamn enforcer.
One year I tried out for cheerleading.. and one of the girls actually walked up to me and said" The rest of the squad has decided we don't want you here" ... I said " Fvck you Lisa, you didn't vote me on the squad, you ain't kickin me off" ... she actually thought I would back down and leave the squad....
If I ever see her again, I ll tell her the very same thing I told her that day....
Kudos.... sometimes revenge IS sweet....
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oklacheri
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Aug 8 @ 6:04PM
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Some of us have the same sick memories....
and a few of us have had a chance to stand up to them and watch as they show themselves for what they always were.
Pitiful people living pitiful lives.... KARMA don't ya love it! 
Happy that you got your chance
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ColdinWisconsin
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Aug 8 @ 8:47PM
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The door has closed and he's stepping out into the light.
~*~
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Clair_Voyeuse
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Aug 9 @ 12:38AM
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What goes around comes around...but...didn't you just start another "go round"?
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cowboy2x4
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Aug 9 @ 10:32AM
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Dreams are my "Angels"...
Memories are my "Demons".........tp777
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observed50
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Aug 9 @ 11:50AM
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Goose> You can see by the answers...a lot of kids get picked on, and carry that crap a long time. And what is interesting, is that as a teacher, there is hardly a kid that feels like they fit...like they belong...
but they all try so hard...and do so much self-inflicted damage along the way as they try to be good enough. And of course, the picking stops usually upon graduation, but....we learned a way of seeing, thinking, feeling, responding...and though the kids quit picking on us years ago...we keep doing it to our self for years afterward. The kids were done when we graduated...but we couldn't figure out how to stop thinking like we learned within their midst...and so just kept on hammering away....feeling pain that was long ago done....until we did it again to our selves in memory.
One of the great failures of learning both within family and schools, is teaching the child how to let go. The family and school both train you to watch the social group to know of yourself, your value, your veracity, your capacity. If the family says 'geesh, you're stupid!' or the school says 'you are worthless'...they can't afford to also teach you that is ALL about the observer, the commenter....not the observed, or commented upon . If they taught you taught you freedom and power while trying to control your behavior, you would question everything, and unlink from all the social crap they've asked you to believe so you can 'fit' into the herd.
Yes...kids do awful things. Yes...many people have suffered at the hands of other kids. But they quit hurting you a long time ago. You and your memory and learned processes of thought and interpretation have been the ones pounding on you ever since. And that isn't solved by handing off the story back to the bully. Yes...maybe a pyrrhic victory...where it feels good for a while...but the mind didn't get rid of it's ineffective mechanisms of information processing. It simply lived in its head what it thought it did to the other...just as the other did so very long ago.
Find freedom...find power. And for the mind, that is always in letting go, and recognizing in the other...ourselves.
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beckyiv42000
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Sep 23 @ 9:19AM
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Now the best thing to do is LET GO... do not let the demons linger for if you do they grow once again ..ignore them and LIVE your life fully ...and if anything pity the demons for they have to be who they are to make themselves feel anything ... you on the other hand can feel with your heart
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