I wish I would have thrown a punch. If I had, maybe I would not be here in the shadow of that mountain towering over me. That angry mountain casts a shadow of hate.
I regret allowing myself to be terrorized by other children in elementary school. I really regret not fighting back, even if I would not have won. It is nothing unusual being bullied, it happened to a lot of us. What I regret is how I allowed it to change me. I am often told “It’s in the past, let it go,” but I won’t.
It is not because I can’t let go, it’s because I do not want to. I have held onto those searing years for so long that they seem more real to me than what has followed. By not fighting back I have allowed the mountain of anger to cover me in its shadow. At its base is an image, like a frozen scene—a kick to my ass, a slap to the face, a cruel joke—and at its peak is my mind, where thoughts are repeated over and over in echoes, refracting my spirit a million times under the lens of doubt.
Like Lawrence Shannon, the shamed former minister in “The Night of the Iguana,” I am left with a muddled mind. Since I did not fight back I never learned to deal with the situation. A conflict, like Shannon faced with Charlotte, begins small but grows in severity if we avoid it. Like him, I avoided conflict and was left with anger. Those boys who caused me so much pain are gone. Just as Charlotte and the bus of women were taken from Shannon’s supervision, my bus of rowdy school children has gone away. Shannon and I blamed those people for our internal crisis, but now that they are gone we are alone to face our doubts.
Shannon struggled with his physical cravings and his desire to go back to the church. I still carry anger from being bullied, but I no longer want to punch those who tormented me. At one time I wanted to wipe them out. Old emotions can lead to swelling from infectious thoughts and lead to misanthropy. I was 13 then and now I realize that hate became mixed with a realization. I can’t say it was a newfound love, but it was a better understanding of humans.
Many would like to suffer a painless crucifixion for the sins of the world, but the world is erratic, not evil. Our pain is singular and we can not be a martyr for the world. We must live for ourselves the way we wish others to live. Shannon and I, like the iguana, were prisoners, but society is not going out of its way to imprison us. No one is after us to harm or capture us. Shannon released the iguana that was destined to be eaten the next day and by doing so he may have also given himself permission to release himself. Realizing that my tormentors—like the iguana’s captors—are only human, I am left to realize there is no longer a villain, just people. And people are the worst to deal with, especially when it is your own self.