My mother tells a story that seems to sum up my teenage personality perfectly. She received a call at work one day from the school. She answered with trepidation, because a call from the school, about me, couldn’t be good.
And it wasn’t.
My Principal had called my mother to talk about my ongoing suspension from school. Except, when he brought it up, my mother hadn’t known about it. He explained the circumstances, and when she thanked him for the call, but before she could hang up he stopped her. He then said that wasn’t the problem. There was more…
You see, I had received formal notice of my suspension the week prior, but when the time came for me to be suspended, I decided I was going to school anyway. I showed up to all of my classes and I pretended like absolutely nothing was out of the ordinary. I’m not sure why I chose that course of action, but a quote from The Dark Knight comes to mind: “Some men just want to watch the world burn.”
My mother was dumbfounded. As was the Principal. I don’t remember how it all panned out, but I think they let me just keep on going to class. I think life went on as normal.
Back in those days, I tended to play by my own rules, right or wrong. I was an arrogant asshole.
Our actions, no matter the intentions, leave wounds. Over time these wounds can become scars, but they never completely heal. As a Comic Book Nerd, and now in modern times, a Screen-Adaptation Nerd, I tend to like to relate situations in my life to the storylines of my heroes…
The Flash is one of my favorites.
In a particularly compelling and relevant storyline, Barry Allen chooses to go back in time and save his mother from being murdered and his father from being unjustly jailed for the crime. In doing so, he changes every other aspect of not only his life, but the lives of all those around him. When The Flash returns to his time, he alone remembers what the world was like before he entered the Speed Force and altered the timeline. Even though Barry meant well, we, the audience, know that the road to hell is often paved with good intentions.
At no point is this more apparent, than when Flash is forced to go back, for the second time, to the moment of his mother’s death, but instead, now, he must stop the other version of himself from interfering, and watch as his mother is murdered. Again. He was trying to set right the changes he had caused.
Even so, when Barry returns to his own time, he realizes everything still isn’t quite the way it was before. There are lasting effects of his actions.
It reminds me of the story about the little boy and nails in the fence. A friend of mine told me this story while in Afghanistan, and it just…stuck. It goes something like this:
There once was a little boy who had a bad temper. His father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence.
The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down. He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence.
Finally, the day came when the boy didn’t lose his temper at all. He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper. The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone.
The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. He said, “You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won’t matter how many times you say I’m sorry, the wound is still there.”
The little boy then understood how powerful his words were. He looked up at his father and said: “I hope you can forgive me father for the holes I put in you.”
“Of course I can,” said the father.
Growing up, after my parents divorced and my new stepfather came into the picture, times got rough. I was only six years old, but from that moment, until I moved out at sixteen, everyday life became a constant battle.
In the small village of Dorchester, there’s a house that sits at the end of the street. It’s an old white farmhouse, with a spacious yard, a garage, a little greenhouse, and a large barn. When you drive by you probably think what a perfect spot that would be to raise a family.
But you’d be wrong.
If the walls could talk they’d tell stories much more fitting to the Overlook Hotel than to Mayberry:
A small boy, young and frightened, trying desperately to call 911 before he watched his mother be beaten to death in front of him- only to have the phone ripped from his hands, and then the wall.
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That same boy, and the unfortunate friend he invited over for a sleepover, trying to pull a man off his wife in the middle of the street after a fish fry, in vain. Those boys were swatted away like flies.
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A boy growing up through the years, saying goodnight to his mother and stepfather before bed and invariably, only receiving one reply.
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A boy running, in the middle of the night, through the first heavy snow of the year, miles down the road to his best friend’s house, to seek shelter from the violence.
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A young teenager, being drug down the stairs, fighting for his life, before being thrown through a plaster wall.
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A teenager, lost, homeless, running from the law, looking for direction.
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One last fist fight between the teen and his stepfather, a fight that severed civility for good.
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A young man, going off to war, and being told by his stepfather to not “fuck it up this time”.
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And finally, a man. A man who realizes that the years have left a lot of holes in the fence. Maybe too many to even still call it a fence at all. And furthermore, realizing those holes comes regret, sorrow, longing, and loss.
The monster is no longer in the picture, but the claw marks made still haven’t quite healed. When I look back at that life, at that last line, I can’t help but wonder, who was the monster?
Was it my verbally, emotionally, and physically abusive stepfather? Possibly.
Was it my neglectful mother who had the ability, but not the will to rescue us from that situation?
Maybe.
Or was it me…?
Probably.
At any point, I could have made life easier. I could have caused less trouble, been less of a problem child, or possibly even attempted to make peace instead of always fanning the flames with my quick tongue and acid comebacks.
I can’t help but wonder, what I would do now if I had the power of The Flash? Would I be the hero and go back in time and try to correct the mistakes of the past? Or would I be Savitar, a Barry Allen from the future who is so consumed by rage and anger that he only uses his power to spread more pain?
So, this year, like the last, and the one before, I can’t go home for Christmas. It isn’t because I was wronged. Or told not to come. It isn’t because of my scars. It’s because of me, and who I am now.
I’m not the same, scared, battered little kid anymore.
I’m not the angry adolescent.
I’m certainly not The Flash.
And I’m not even the Paratrooper overseas defending his country.
What am I now is someone trying to mend a fence – moving from hole to hole and filling them in as best I can, trying my damnedest to not turn into Savitar.
#WordsThatMatter
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This post is republished on Medium.
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