And I’ve watched too many time travel shows to obsess a lot about changing my
past. I am who I am because of my experiences, good and bad. The parts of me they
targeted – being sensitive, being bookish, being the kid who handed in essays five
pages too long because I loved words – are the parts of me I am proudest of now,
the parts that allow me to do what I do.
But I wish I had have told someone. I wish I hadn’t decided I was alone in a room,
a class, a school of guys deciding they were alone as well because no-one was willing
to say the first word.
There’s this movie scene. You know the one – the hero gets injured but manfully
struggles on, refusing the help his companions know he needs. They continue, he
struggles, lashes out in anger and -
*dramatic music*
- he collapses. The wound is infected. People recoil. Cue boiling water and sutures.
We’re taught to ignore injury, to keep going, to not make a fuss. And we suppress
the pain until the wound festers, and you get angry at yourself for getting hurt in
the first place. As if being human was your fault. As if the smart thing to do isn’t to
treat the pain instead.
The boys who teach us to stay quiet do so because they’re in pain, and like the
lantern-jawed hero we’re all supposed to be, they’re afraid to look beneath the
bandage. The pain of treatment would be too great, they think, and they attack
others because if they’re in pain others must be too.
Anger and fear are all we boys are allowed. Seems a bit of a raw deal.
I wouldn’t go back and talk to Younger Me, if I could. He’d have far too many
questions about how I got there, for one thing, and I don’t want to be different than
I am now. But I’ve watched bullies live like rats in a wheel, playing out the same
patterns over and over again because they can’t admit that they’re in pain, and I’ve
seen young men resolutely fight to hold onto the things that make them human,
instead of hiding them just to fit in with everybody else. That’s strength – the
strength to speak up, for yourself and for others, the strength to be yourself, instead
of what other people decide you should be. There’s no power in spending your life
in retreat from yourself, and I’d rather not wait until I drop from a wound I’m
pretending not to have.
I care too much for that.
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