learning

from november of my 7th grade year through the first quarter of my senior year in high school, i was regularly terrorized by a particular kid.  there were many other terrorists…that I was a puny sensitive intelligent “more afraid to get into trouble than afraid of the terrorists” made me an easy mark (one of the terrorists began his reign of terror when i was a junior in high school…that reign of terror ended with two events…that his sister was on stage crew in one of the school drama productions and she and i got to be good friends…i remember her describing as a ‘candy-assed cowardly prick’ certainly added to my final resolve that he was not worth my time in worry…her comment came after i had slapped him as hard as i could…which was pretty hard even though he was 6 inches taller and 25 lbs heavier…while he had been trying to trip me in a local mall…he ended up in the green bay correctional facility).  anyway…this other kid…terrorized me mercilessly for about 4 years.  he did stupid things like steal my socks while i was in gym class…he wrote disgusting things on my locker…he screwed up my library pass regularly.  i had three direct victories over him…one of which i can mention here: seeing him screwing around with another “little kids” locker in school one day…i was pretty fast…had had a bit of a bad day…i ran as fast as i could down the hallway…toward his back…he never saw me coming…and i ran full force into him as he screwed around with the locker, slamming him into the metal.  i remember his glasses coming off and that he wasn’t able to get up right away.  i lost a pair of socks the next week.  in a later time of life i repeatedly made prank phone calls to him.  i’m not proud of that.

the issue with all this is that, in being afraid of getting into trouble, i missed out on opportunities to take this kid on face to face.  fear handcuffed me too often.  i regret that.  today, i find myself handcuffed by fear.  what if i were to go for it…