a parable
Ravenm reminds me of a story I've wanted to tell for a while, because it was deeply formative in regard to how I constructed my worldview, politics, and general feeling about people afterward. You'll see.
When I was in eighth grade, there was a new fad in physical education classes. It involved the sort of rope games and trust exercises one gets at some summer camps, I'm told--I never went to camp myself. You would join hands with another person and support each other while walking parallel low tightropes. You would balance on a short post while someone else spotted you.
This was all before I had decided to create a male persona and present as normative for my own safety, a decision that may have saved my life and conferred on me a number of privileges, but which ended up carrying a price, as any sacrifice must. I had taken enough daily degradation at that point that I had stopped considering myself a human being, and had been profoundly depressed since somewhere around my first attempt on my life at the age of eight. Teachers looked on when I was thrown down and beaten with hockey sticks in gym class. I lost track of the times I was hit or threatened on the bus home, had my clothes flushed down the toilet, any number of things. I figured the world didn't want me, and I didn't want it, and I would bide my time until I could make a mark--a symbol, a cipher, a flare-out for a cause--and then quietly make my escape. I never expected to get to be a whole person, so why not lie and get by? Choosing to put myself aside, in my mid-teens, and spend a few years getting what benefit I could out of masculine posturing was a selfish decision, but it made life tolerable enough that I was eventually able to make some friends, do my schoolwork, and keep it together long enough to make it almost to college before the closet became unbearable again and life got much more complicated and much more fulfilling. It kept me from hurting anyone for a while, even if all the violence was turned inward, and that was enough.
This is just background. Gym class. Right.
So the final game went something like this: in the stand of woods out back behind the football field, a little wooden platform had been installed about five feet up a pine tree. Everyone took turns climbing up to the platform, one at a time. The one on the platform would face the tree trunk. Ten students would line up in two lines, under the teacher's direction, facing each other, underneath, their arms outstretched and interlacing. The student on the platform would fall backwards off the platform, be caught by the collective effort of the rest of the class, and be placed safely on the ground.
I was second-to-last to go. I was terrified. I think they knew that. But I decided to take the plunge and try to put faith--if not in my fellow human beings--in the system enforcing their behavior, since everyone else had gotten out okay. I closed my eyes as I fell, but not fast enough to miss seeing, in my peripheral vision, every one of those students, in unison, take a step backward and allow me to fall, some of them laughing.
Except one. One blur of movement: one girl I didn't really know arresting her backward step and coming back, one pair of hands hitting my back in a futile effort just before I hit the ground, hard.
It was a small injury--some bruises and the wind knocked out of me--but I had a moment, staring at the sky through the treetops, to learn a lesson. There were two immediately available:
1. Given the chance, people will be bastards.
2. No matter how many people unite in cruelty, someone will always try to do the right thing. Even if it isn't enough, it still matters.
As that one girl asked if I was okay, I decided that that first lesson was not going to make me a better person, and that the second was the one worth learning. That was one of the days I finally got around to joining the human race. It was one of the moments of kindness that taught me that there was something to hope for in this life, something worth sticking around for. It was an opportunity to decide if I would be identified by what was broken, or what was whole; by hate for those who had hurt me, or love for those who refused; by what other people had done to me, or what I believed people could do for each other.
Every now and then, when it gets difficult to remember what to work for in this world, I remember the feeling of those two small hands hitting my back.
When I was in eighth grade, there was a new fad in physical education classes. It involved the sort of rope games and trust exercises one gets at some summer camps, I'm told--I never went to camp myself. You would join hands with another person and support each other while walking parallel low tightropes. You would balance on a short post while someone else spotted you.
This was all before I had decided to create a male persona and present as normative for my own safety, a decision that may have saved my life and conferred on me a number of privileges, but which ended up carrying a price, as any sacrifice must. I had taken enough daily degradation at that point that I had stopped considering myself a human being, and had been profoundly depressed since somewhere around my first attempt on my life at the age of eight. Teachers looked on when I was thrown down and beaten with hockey sticks in gym class. I lost track of the times I was hit or threatened on the bus home, had my clothes flushed down the toilet, any number of things. I figured the world didn't want me, and I didn't want it, and I would bide my time until I could make a mark--a symbol, a cipher, a flare-out for a cause--and then quietly make my escape. I never expected to get to be a whole person, so why not lie and get by? Choosing to put myself aside, in my mid-teens, and spend a few years getting what benefit I could out of masculine posturing was a selfish decision, but it made life tolerable enough that I was eventually able to make some friends, do my schoolwork, and keep it together long enough to make it almost to college before the closet became unbearable again and life got much more complicated and much more fulfilling. It kept me from hurting anyone for a while, even if all the violence was turned inward, and that was enough.
This is just background. Gym class. Right.
So the final game went something like this: in the stand of woods out back behind the football field, a little wooden platform had been installed about five feet up a pine tree. Everyone took turns climbing up to the platform, one at a time. The one on the platform would face the tree trunk. Ten students would line up in two lines, under the teacher's direction, facing each other, underneath, their arms outstretched and interlacing. The student on the platform would fall backwards off the platform, be caught by the collective effort of the rest of the class, and be placed safely on the ground.
I was second-to-last to go. I was terrified. I think they knew that. But I decided to take the plunge and try to put faith--if not in my fellow human beings--in the system enforcing their behavior, since everyone else had gotten out okay. I closed my eyes as I fell, but not fast enough to miss seeing, in my peripheral vision, every one of those students, in unison, take a step backward and allow me to fall, some of them laughing.
Except one. One blur of movement: one girl I didn't really know arresting her backward step and coming back, one pair of hands hitting my back in a futile effort just before I hit the ground, hard.
It was a small injury--some bruises and the wind knocked out of me--but I had a moment, staring at the sky through the treetops, to learn a lesson. There were two immediately available:
1. Given the chance, people will be bastards.
2. No matter how many people unite in cruelty, someone will always try to do the right thing. Even if it isn't enough, it still matters.
As that one girl asked if I was okay, I decided that that first lesson was not going to make me a better person, and that the second was the one worth learning. That was one of the days I finally got around to joining the human race. It was one of the moments of kindness that taught me that there was something to hope for in this life, something worth sticking around for. It was an opportunity to decide if I would be identified by what was broken, or what was whole; by hate for those who had hurt me, or love for those who refused; by what other people had done to me, or what I believed people could do for each other.
Every now and then, when it gets difficult to remember what to work for in this world, I remember the feeling of those two small hands hitting my back.
posted by little light | 5:31 PM
39 Comments:
Just wow.
In this world where the bigots and the sociopaths and the seriously evil, evil people have nothing better to do that to create their own hierarchies and subjugate who they want to subjugate, we have to take that second lesson to heart. To see who is oppressed and who is oppressing and try, at all times, to be those two tiny hands that struggle against the heavy handed bigotry of the rest of the world.
This makes me cry.
I am happy you took away from this experience the one good thing you could take from it.
I think it's easy to look past the positives when there are so many negatives. I says something so wonderful about you, that you choose to remember that one act of kindness.
Thank you.
Yes, a very inspiring story. I hope it reaches (many) someone(s) who it can help.
It begs the question, though. Actually a couple of questions. The way you "pulled a Mulan" may have not only saved you during that time, but given you a cushion that may have helped you later in life. How many others have done this and is it a helpful coping mechanism? You mention that it had drawbacks, which I'm sure it did. Is it a good coping mechanism for queer youth, even some queer adults? Coping mechanisms tend to not be healthy because they seem to be me (who has many that I find have become deeply ingrained in my personality) as only stopgaps, but that's just my experience.
The other question is for how many of us have we not had that one set of little hands to try to help? Or a sneaker to the head after the fall while the teacher wasn't looking?
We all have a wide range of experiences. How does that shape and form us?
Is our survival based on mere luck? Or is it some built-in predisposition to see hope where another might not ever see anything hopeful, even in a situation such as was described here. I know, for me personally, I wouldn't have been comforted by that. I'm sure there were times in my life where someone cared and I just didn't notice or it just wasn't enough to overcome the waves and waves of despair and worse.
I just watched a little short clip of the The Milgram Experiment ( http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2007/01/question_author.html ) today before I read your post. It's not just sociopaths and bigots who we have to worry about. It's everyday folk who don't question the authority figures in their lives.
This is why I'm so unimpressed with the Heart or Twisty stuff, no matter how vile their actions, they are mere cells in a much bigger organism, just following orders.
Dead Inside, I don't have the time before work to reply as much as I'd like to, but I think you bring up important questions.
I didn't learn the lesson I was supposed to. I think I was supposed to learn trust is not for you, or watch your back, or maybe your pain is funny to real people. And no, there's no telling whether or not I'd have absorbed that were I to have a different disposition. There's no telling what lessons I'd have learned if I'd lived, as the majority of people alive have, a life much harder than mine.
The one pair of hands is still worth looking for, is the point, I think, or one of them.
You're right; most of the kids involved in that prank were not sociopaths. They were regular people acting as a group, and even the one who tried to catch me initially went along with the plan, because Everyone Was Doing It. A lot of them probably felt bad about it afterward, or went along because they didn't want to be targets for abuse themselves. Like a slightly-older me, they made selfish choices in order to get by.
I think that's another part of the point; we're all parts of a system, yes, we're all cells in an organism, yes, but we are not programmed. We can defy a system that says hurt the weaker and torture the different, just as we can defy a system that says you don't get to take part in humanity and you deserve what's happening to you.
More importantly, though it's a lot of work and we don't always have the luck to have the lessons thrown in our faces, we can defy that voice that says this is the way it always has to be. We just need each other.
What amazes me about this story, Little Light, is that you knew not to trust in that experiment, yet you gave it a shot anyway. What bravery that young girl had! It was easy for the rest of them to try. Not for you. I am amazed by the awesome courage we sometimes have when we are young.
Dead inside wrote: "I know, for me personally, I wouldn't have been comforted by that. I'm sure there were times in my life where someone cared and I just didn't notice or it just wasn't enough to overcome the waves and waves of despair and worse."
There are times that was true for me as well. Or there were people who wanted to help but did it badly .
"It's not just sociopaths and bigots who we have to worry about. It's everyday folk who don't question the authority figures in their lives."
Oh absolutely. That's why I try to hang with the rebels. Or as someone mentioned recently, with the "monsters"
.
LL:
I hear ya on this one, oh yes indeedy...
It's not just sociopaths and bigots who we have to worry about. It's everyday folk who don't question the authority figures in their lives.
Well, that does depend on how you see the word bigot and how it should be applied, of course. For me, that word has multiple applications corresponding to those who rely consistently on their own intolerance to make themselves feel ultimately superior to the rest of the world, no matter where that insanity comes from.
As to sociopaths, I use that term to describe someone who is unable, in all circumstances, to understand empathy when it doesn't help them out in some fashion.
Then again, the core premise is correct. We should not be armchair psychologists and we should not be issuing judgments from on high. We should be in solidarity with each other and loving in whatever way possible.
Loved this, Little Light!
dead inside -
I "pulled a Mulan" many years ago by turning myself into a chameleon, more or less. I don't think it was such a good idea, because I can't stop doing it. I don't think it's a lack of courage, so much as a hard-to-break habit. Not to mention I've been about it so long that I've got a stake in maintaining my current persona, lest I lose everything I've acheived so far as the cost of being true to myself. It's a stopgap that takes root if left to its own devices.
As for your post, LL, I admire your ability to see good in an otherwise bad situation. I've never experienced the physical abuse that so many others have, yourself included from what I gather, but that's only because I chose to take option 1 and hate everyone that hated me. If I can, I try to attack first so those who would harm me don't get the chance to. I learned how to fight, and I took on a couple people twice my size and came out no worse for wear. A reputation for crazy will keep a lot of people away, I've found. The result is I'm generally a bitter and angry person and a thoroughgoing misanthrope. I expect the worst of people, so I'm rarely disappointed. I find it makes me forget the small kindnesses people do me, because I'm always looking for the other hand that will take it away or stab me in the back. It's not a good way to be, so again, I admire your ability to do otherwise. It's a road I'm not sure is open to me anymore.
This is beautiful. The key is to work on perceiving those little hands that try to help, though, after all the scrapes from their absence. Dead Inside raises a good question about not recognizing the help received when in the thick of despair and depression. I think sometimes people are afraid to look for the good in actions in fear of dependency upon them and being let down. But that's one of the risks taken when abandoning yourself to levels of trust...
erin m : It's funny, Chameleon was one of my private names for myself, years ago. Turning myself into one was how I hid my real self from the world through adolescence, no one knew who the real "me" was. Eventually even I started to forget. I never learned to fight though. In fact the most memorable lesson I took away from childhood was that standing up to my tormentors would only get me punished along with them, and then tomorrow would be even worse.
little light I couldn't imagine coming away from an experience like that with a positive lesson. It says a lot about you that you were able to.
I'm supposed to say something Really Profound here. But I'm all out of Profundity this morning so I'll just say:
Day-um.
what trin said.
LL, that's a beautiful story. Your writing is incredible.
Actually, I should jump back in, because there's something vitally important that I missed saying before.
Yes. I have always wondered how things would have been if that pair of hands had never hit my back. If that one person hadn't made a split-second decision to turn around and act in compassion or decided that it was, after all, a harmless prank, it would be a very different memory to carry.
I might never have learned the lesson I chose to learn from it, or might have done so much later, maybe too late.
For an intelligent, disaffected, alienated child full of rage and bitterness and self-loathing and not overly concerned with survival, that could have had horrific consequences. This was, after all, the age of Columbine and Springfield.
If that act of minimal, at-the-time-apparently-ineffectual decency, along with a couple of other tiny things--a "how are you" a year later from another relative stranger, a card from a concerned English teacher--hadn't happened, nothing good I do in the world today and forever would have been possible. If it weren't for a collection of tiny decencies amid all the hurt and anger arriving to show me another way was possible, it is extremely likely that there would be nothing here for you to read, because I would not have gotten to high school alive, and the only wild card would have been whether or not I'd done someone else harm in the going. I don't have illusions about this; I am not a saint, and victimhood does not confer innocence.
You do not, at any moment, have any idea whether or not the two hands reaching out to hold someone else up--even when it looks hopeless or pointless--will be yours. You cannot know that a simple matter of eye contact or genuine concern or refusing to participate in pointless meanness--or the similarly tiny opposites of these things--will mean the difference between life and death for someone. I told the girl in this story, years later, how much her action had meant to me, and she didn't even remember it.
Our daily, infinitesimal cruelties and compassions matter. If not to us, to someone. Everyone who ever benefits from my being in the world owes an unwitting debt to the people who brought me back from the edge, and in turn, and in turn, in an endless fractal of human connections.
There is always someone resisting wrong and trying to do the right thing. Sometimes they are not there for us--there were many times I could have wished for two hands at my back in support, and found none. Sometimes we have to do the impossible and forgive their absence. Sometimes those hands have to be us, even when it isn't fair; it's the only way it will get better. It's a matter of risk, and of trust, often misplaced, but hope in this world is not optional--it is a matter of basic survival.
With my part-Jewish upbringing, I'm reminded of another story: that of the Thirty-Six Tzaddikim.
Sometimes simple decency is enough to make humanity worth it. We cannot know what portions of the sky we each are holding up, in the end. We can only put out our hands.
Your writing gets at so much that's buried deep down beyond all the swirling hand-waving of politics and "identity" or whatever to what's really important. Thanks, yet again, for a really great post.
Unfortunately, there isn't always someone who will do the right thing. But when there is, their gesture DOES indeed matter. It matters a lot.
I hope at some point you can bring yourself to try a ropes course--with people who actually care about you, of course. I was lucky enough to take part in one with the rest of my high school environmental science class, and I can honestly say it was one of the most important days of my life. The actual lessons that farce of an exercise was Supposed to teach you--trust, depending on others, letting go--can be taught out in the woods with some silly ropes and platforms, provided the right people are there.
Thank you so much for this post. I often am afraid of those hands because I am afraid to depend on them, that if I do, I will not be okay without them, because I'm not strong enough.
It's been said, but thanks so much for sharing this.
This is lovely.
It reminds me, from the other side, of Noam Chomsky's reason for working so tirelessly to fight for change in this world. A "fat kid" was being picked on when he was 8 or so, and he went and stood beside him to protect him. But then he got scared of the crowd, so he joined them. He can't live with being the kind of person who steps back down, so he never did it again.
Yet another wonderful post.
I’ve been through some fairly cynical periods in my life. It’s good to read a reminder of why faith and trust are so important to survival. Often times, it’s hard to see the good in the world.
Thank you for sharing so much of yourself with us, Little Light.
Luckily, mk, I had street medicine to teach me most of those lessons, after the fact, and I don't know if the ropes will be necessary. Those are probably parables for other times, though, even if equally vital to my understanding of how morality and activism ought to work.
I'm glad people are getting something from this piece; to be honest, I almost didn't post it, because I didn't think its quality was up to par, and that its subject matter was too self-indulgent.
I suppose I need to stop second-guessing these things. Faith is, unfortunately, not my strong suit.
It's miraculous that you interpreted that situation the way you did. I don't think I would have. Certainly not in 8th grade.
Thanks for posting this.
my belief/experience/feelings are also this:
while the people who will buck the crowd and put out the hands are rare, i also think the people who instigate the "let's step back, it'll be funny" are rare. the rest of the population mostly tends to be...unthinking. not mensches. but not thoroughly awful people, either. they go along to get along.
so it is important to honor the mensches, or the mesnchlike behavior, when it happens, yes.
it is also, i believe, important to track down and point out the...source of the awfulness. in my experience it's actually often...well.
this is a highly subjective amateur pop-psych site. i don't agree with everything said in it, and yes it is probably too easy to take this sort of thing and twist it for nefarious purposes its own self. nonetheless. and this is not the only such place/source that has said similar things:
Because people are like this, cynics can exploit and manipulate them like puppets. En-masse even. A sad fact but true. It's dangerous to go through life with the misconception that most people are good. While we can, and should, give every individual the benefit of the doubt, we should face the fact that the great majority of people just go along with the herd. No matter what it's doing. So, it doesn't pay to be too trusting of people who haven't earned our trust. (Con artists get rich on misplaced trust.)
Because most people's behavior conforms to whatever wins them approval and acceptance among their neighbors in the herd, a cynic can use this power over them to make them build him a pyramid or to march them off to war. But he puts it to most effective use when he uses it to sic them like a pack of hounds on some person or group.
That demonstrates his absolute power over them and makes an example of what happens to anyone he sicks them on, establishing for him a reign of terror. In a nation, a workplace, a neighborhood, or a family. It happens in any closed environment. If you introduce a narcissistic bully to orchestrate it, you get a bloodbath every single time...
Narcissists live in constant fear of being exposed for what they are and would rather die than be exposed. They are careful whom they let Mr. Hyde out at and play Block the Kick to discredit the victim so that no one will believe their complaints. People abhor the victim as the one telling vicious lies about that poor, poor abuser.
Another thing narcissists do is try to control their Pathological Space, the network of relationships in their home, extended families, workplace, and neighborhood. The narcissist's malignant influence permeates the Pathological Space, manipulating people's behavior and perceptions. The narcissist needs to control what word gets around in it. In addition, controlling people is desirable in itself for a narcissist. It "proves" his delusion that he is a god. Since childhood, narcissists have constantly gained experience manipulating people. As adults they are expert manipulators and often can control whole groups.
***
and
Remember that a narcissist's goal is attention. His or her whole life is a game of monopoly for it all. Keep in mind that attention comes in many forms, including regard, love, and respect.
The grandiosity is an excuse to justify hogging it all.
The abuse denies it, bringing the victim low, either by slander or treating them like dirt.
The lack of empathy is partly play-acting grandiosity by viewing the deprived victim as a bug and partly to un-conscience the cruelty of narcissistic abuse.
So, at bottom, it's all about attention.
Though a narcissist may be overtly exhibitionistic at times, NPD is different from other attention-getting disorders. A narcissist's attention-getting is covert most of the time. There are two reasons for this.
· She can't abuse just anybody without risk of payback. So, (normally) she needs to project an image that reflects well on her. People respond negatively to any but subtle exhibitionism that somehow stays beneath their radar. So, exhibitionism rarely gets a narcissist the reflection she wants to see in people's faces.
· Needing to be the center of attention is a childhood trait. Being childish is not grandiose, so the narcissist must get attention without seeming to seek or want it.
Besides, a god isn't exhibitionistic. God is self-sufficient, needing nothing from anyone. God never cries out for attention. Instead, she is subtle: she needs to project an image of herself as so special that others owe her all their attention without her having to ask for it. Or appreciate it (which would be paying some attention back). In other words, she acts like a queen, who is above noticing all the attention she gets from everyone around her but regards her dignity as slighted by anything less than all of it.
This absurdly haughty attitude is born of another thing that distinguishes narcissistic attention-getting from other personality disorders. Narcissists are infinitely stingy with their own attention and infinitely covetous of everybody else's. In fact, their most characteristic behaviors are behaviors that deny attention to anybody but themselves....
and
It just ain't natural to have ill will toward people who aren't harming you, have never harmed you, and have never threatened to harm you. It just ain't natural to be made unhappy by good things happening to others. It just ain't natural to want to deprive people of things they need to be happy.
and
People prostitute themselves to a bully out of fear, which is understandable. But amazingly foolish. If they had any sense, they would do the opposite of what they do. Instead of abandoning the first one the he sets the evil eye on, they would rush to that person's side and tell this bully that "What you do to him you do to us."
But don't count on it. Few have the integrity to do the right thing. That's a disagreeable thing to know. But if you've seen a narcissistic bully rule a family, a business, an organization, or a nation, you know it's true. History records this lesson for us repeatedly and will continue to do so till we learn it.
So, seek help among OUTSIDERS, people from outside the narcissist's Pathological Space. The bully is no threat to them, so they probably have no reason to think with lies. They may find it hard to believe, but they can be willing to know the truth. Nothing compels them to play the fool by playing along with the disgusting charade. They are free to view it correctly, as a farce.
They are not already under his influence, so you can warn them in advance about how manipulative he is and what a con artist he is.
If necessary, have the courage to shine the light of day on what is going on so that the outside world looks in on what is going on.
That's how you get the insiders to drop the charade and get real. The moment they see outsiders looking on, they rediscover their sense of shame. Because now it isn't 100-to-1 their word against yours, anymore. Now the whole world gets a vote, and they know that the rest of the world has nothing to gain by pretending this farce is legitimate.
Thank you for this, and for finding your place and surviving.
We can do better, Belle.
It is desperately important for those who have the strength to stand for those who don't, in the little ways first. It's hard. It's hard and scary and it involves shutting out a lot of messages about how we're told the world works, but people are better than that. They just need reminding.
They're scared and hurt and lonely, people, and they just need reminding that they're better than what they're given. Some of them don't want to listen; fine, I've seen that many times. Still:
Just because we don't have to like everyone doesn't mean we don't have to love them.
yes, that's well put.
like i say, i don't agree with everything said in that site, starting with the "misconception that most people are good." I do actually think that most people are good. i just don't think most people are very...*thinking.* and are self-interested, and often frightened. so, the advice in there ends up amounting to the same thing more or less--what you said, also, basically, be the change you seek. i just don't like the way sie puts it. there are other things. but: yeah, for me it's a fine line and involves making distinctions based on the individual as much as possible. it's at least as much about: i too am human, and there are certain people who may be redeemable/reachable/whatever, but as far as -I- am concerned they are not worth my energy, because i have a limited amount, and i would rather give mine to the other 90% in the room who've gone wanting and hurting and have demonstrated some capacity for reciprocity. that's just me, though.
Well, I can't but acknowledge you're right in a lot of that, belledame.
One of the hardest lessons I ever had to learn--one I'm still fighting as it settles in me--is that no matter how infinite the human capacity for love is, the strength and energy and time we have to do anything about it is painfully limited.
You can love everyone in the world, but you can only give fully of yourself to so many, and only act on that love to a comparatively select few, you know? And sometimes it's a matter of triage. Sometimes you've got a patient who's arguing over refusing treatment, and there's someone bleeding out a meter off, and you have to make the tough choices.
There are battles you have to pick, even if there are also battles that aren't worth backing down from.
...And, getting back to this whole mess, I think that's an important message here. This is not a normal reaction either to your post or to the alleged appropriative problems with it. This is not the way people treat someone they respect as another human being, nor a normal way to handle a confli
Exactly. that's kind of what i was mostly getting at. and while i agree with you that that particular site is, as you say, geared to a specific (albeit not small, also as you say) part of the population, i find it instructive for identifying, as here, what's wrong with certain more casual interactions (than a full-on personal relationship, say). i also think that a lot of times the language of politics tends to obfuscate the abusive dynamic: people are more likely to engage the content and take it seriously when it's about big, complex, often abstract-seeming issues than when it's about, like, who was supposed to take out the trash, and more to the point, whether that would be an excuse for the sort of thing we've seen here.
little light, I loved this post, it spoke to me on a very personal level. Thank you so very much for sharing it with us. You are a beautiful little light and I’m so thankful you’re here.
I had a gay friend when I was 19. He told me of the hell that was high school for him. "We're going to kill your family, fag" notes were just the beginning.
Your story reminds me of my old friend, where ever he is now.
Add me to chours singing "This is beautiful, Little Light."
Another elegant and beautifully written post.
I think it wonderful that you learned that second lesson of "the two little hands". And as much as I think it important to look for them and know they are there...it's also important to know that they may not be. And, it is vitally important to BE those hands at every opportunity offered.
Those so called "trust" games have always struck me as misguided. Trust, like respect, is an earned privilege. It cheapens it to convey it upon just anyone. "The kindness of strangers" is not a dependible commodity. But this is something you knew.
But when it does happen, there is something wonderful and transcendent about it.
We do what we have to do to survive.
Thank you for writing this.
Absolutely beautiful.
you're amazing. you described a litte piece of my childhood too, for different reasons. these words: "Every now and then, when it gets difficult to remember what to work for in this world, I remember the feeling of those two small hands hitting my back" are going to stay with me for a long, long time.
thank you for your writing and thank you for being you. YOU is a BIG light!!
Thanks for sharing this, it means a lot.
My eighth grade class went on one of those horrible ropes course retreats.
I, who am and will always be horribly afraid of heights, who was (and will always be!) fat and awkward and not even remotely athletic, who was teased horrifically, who generally found middle school to be, in the words of Matt Groening, thee deepest pit in hell, could not see "go into the woods with your peers and do ropes courses and trust exercises!" as anything other than the worst form of torture.
I'm sure leading up to going I cried and had panic attacks and probably begged my mom to get me out of it. But I still went. I spent the whole time feeling sick to my stomach and knowing that it was going to be awful. I would find time to go into the bathroom so I could cry alone (which has been a recurring theme in my pathetic life).
I don't remember much of it except that I was miserable. But, the one thing I have always remembered clearly, is the exact same activity that you have just described. I think I went last. I was dying inside. Someone made some "OH NO WE HAVE TO HOLD UP THE FATTY SHE WILL BREAK OUR ARMS" type of comment. I don't remember if they were reprimanded or not. All I knew was that I was dependent on a bunch of little beasts who all disliked me to catch me. Wonderful. (In fact I remember all those trust activities with great anger: you can't force middle schoolers to like each other, and things like that just further crush the people who are already the most vulnerable.)
But somehow I climbed up on that goddamn platform. I had some little object in my pocket that my mom had given me -- maybe one of those little "guardian angel" pins that you can buy at Longs? Something hokey. But something that reminded me that there was somebody who loved me. I kept touching it.
I really thought they were going to drop me. I was probably crying. I was pondering all the horrible ways I could take vengeance upon my classmates.
But somehow, when it came down to it, all those little assholes didn't let me fall. That moment kind of redeemed middle school for me. Also, the sensation of falling and being caught was kind of cool.
Reading this post, though, I can finally look back and say "See? That wasn't a stupid fear."
Even if you've been able to come out stronger for all of this that you've gone through, I still wish you hadn't had to go through it.
I wish I could say "I would have tried to catch you." I like to believe that I would. But I was one of those people, I'm so ashamed to admit now, who quickly realized that I could deflect some of the shit that was directed at me by participating in the teasing of the very few people who were even further below me. This is one of my greatest shames to this day.
Wonderful post. Let's vote for a world with more catchers!
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