Table of Contents
I’ve always been the kid who sits in the back of the room and wise cracks to the class about the (unspoken) rules that we were expected to abide. It wasn’t about getting attention. It was signaling that I was wise to the charade. That I understood about bullies, and power, and coercion, and abuse.
By age ten I was living in full survival mode. Eat or be eaten.
OK, it was also about getting attention.
I wasn’t a bully. I was a scrapper. In a lot of fights but never badly hurt or, better still, never having seriously hurt anyone. But I began living on instinct and intuition. I learned to read a room, and body language, and facial expressions. And it payed off. It has kept me safe. To this day.
I’m not saying I’m immune. From harm or anything else. I’m just saying that I’m still here. And I will never not be that wary, cagey, sarcastic, challenging brat who thinks he’s one step ahead of everyone else.
But tonight? I wept.
And it made me want to tell you.
There is a yogic mythology about us humans having a finite number of breaths available to us before we die. The idea is meant to inspire long, slow, deep breathing. Well, I hold a parallel belief, about tears. I’ve got a certain, rather large, I’m afraid, amount of tears I am required to shed before I will be allowed to leave this earthly plane. I don’t particularly like crying so, like most of you, I often try not to. I suppress them. Because, come on, really, isn’t there just too much to cry about these days? It’s just common sense to squelch. To suck it up in order to keep plodding. To stay in the game (by not being in the game). It’s survival, for fuck’s sake!
But cry, I must. My fate (my past) (our present) requires it of me. There’s like, I don’t know, a few hundred thousand tears that I have to shed before I die (escape). They always find a way.
It’s always a relief when they come. Like a homecoming. Every time, it’s the same: I’m sorry. I’m sad. I’m lost. I’m here. I’m still here. I’m alive. I’m feeling something. I’m still me.
The trigger isn’t always obvious, so I’m often taken by surprise. As I was tonight.
What’s the point? Great question. What’s my point? What’s the point of it all? What’s the point of anything? I’m not going to tell you there is no point. There has to be a point. There can be a point if you want there to be one. You can make up a point if you can’t find one outside yourself.
You know they come for allies, too, right?
My point is this: someone told me today that these words made a difference. That me telling my story was empowering for them. Enabling. That they were ready to break their silence. That I made a difference. I wept with grief and gratitude. With relief and validation. I wept with recognition.
I wept with sorrow for my friend. I wept with grief for the two little boys that we were. I wept with gratitude for them. I wept with pride that they’re both still here, able to write the words, to tell the stories that need to be told, to break the silence that perpetuates the legacy (the institutions) of abuse that surrounds us.
In that weeping I became complete. I figured something out. I write because I weep. It’s that simple. I write because I write.
So, what’s your story? And how do you tell it? How will you tell it? Will you tell it? To whom will you tell it?
(It might be all that we have.)
