The Bullies Around (Inside) You – How to Defeat Them.

“The biggest bully I ever faced was underneath my own skin.” Johnny Cash.

Paulie Greco appeared. In the schoolyard. I saw him. Rising like a demon above cracked concrete. I couldn’t focus on anything else after that. For hours. Through the massive, thick Brooklyn public school windows behind heavy-gauge steel grating, I could still see him. I couldn’t stop seeing him. Waiting. I couldn’t stop feeling the ice, the fear coursing through veins I didn’t even realize I had inside my body, my head. Until they started throbbing. 2:15pm. He’d been out there. Since noon. High noon.

I remember shaking uncontrollably at my desk the closer the small, black super-ticky clock hand inched moved towards 3. My heart beat heavy in both ears. I wondered how I was going to lose blood, teeth. My spleen. I heard somewhere you could live without a spleen. That oddly seemed to calm me. Would I be able to walk? Please god not the face was all I could think. Thinking positively – Perhaps a good pummeling would work off some of the belly fat I carried around thanks to Drake’s cakes, Yodels to be specific.

Oh Yodels – the unnatural perfect food.

I didn’t do anything to him. In fact, I stayed far from him. I was always aware of his space so I could purposely avoid it.  He hated me because I was fat, I wore green corduroy pants in the summer (thanks mom), I was diverting the attention of a puerto-rican beauty in spandex pants who didn’t give him the time of day – she liked my brains over his brawn. I was friends with his girlfriend (the damn cute girls always liked to be friends with me because I was, non-threatening, funny troll-like figure). I had bigger pimples, maybe. For one reason, many reasons, every reason, this guy hated my guts.

All I knew?  I was dead soon. No more pencils, no more books, no more teacher’s dirty looks. Rest In Peace. In a dirt-blood pile. Smashed behind a city school. 

America’s favorite bully then in rerun form – Butch from The Little Rascals.

There he was – leaning against a shaky schoolyard fence. Greasy dark hair. Black leather jacket with chains (as I think about it, looked stupid in June). He’d deftly bounce off the chain link, then shuffle – from one foot to the other. Right. Left. Right. Left. Rocking. Like a psycho planning a pounce on chubby prey. I’m sure he noticed me through the smudgy glass and steel-cage monster panes of glass. I know, at the least, he smelled me. My fear. I think it made him rock faster.

3pm was here. I couldn’t feel my legs, not sure how I rose from the desk…Numb.

I walked slow. To the bulls-eye. Not sure of my fate.

Random Thoughts:

1). External bullies never go away. Throughout your entire life they’ll re-appear. Even those who were once close friends can turn. Corporate masters like to bully too. Because they can. Shareholders, Boards of Directors encourage it (mostly by demanding greater results). Bullies hate the truth, however. They diminish in power once they know you’re not afraid and you possess the strength of the truth. But you’ll need to shiver in the ice water, feel the cold of loss, first. Today, many companies can pay less in wages, avoid raises, ask more out of you, work you out of a position for others less skilled, because they have the power. As the economy slowly improves, their ability to bully and scare will diminish. Be patient. Stay true to your cause. You shall prevail in finding greater more lucrative ventures.

2). Get to know your inner bullies. The bullies who push against you from within. They do stick around you until death. You know them. You’ve faced them. The ones who constantly, mentally pummel you. Telling you you’re going to fail, fall, falter. The ones who nag at you. Encourage you to flee. It’ll take some strong self-analysis to understand your interbullies as I call them, but if you remain aware, you’ll face your internal Paulies head on. You may stumble short term; oh, they’ll rock you, shuffle you up, but you will win, eventually. It’s inevitable. The more you fight them, the greater understanding you’ll have of their crude methods to shake you. Your mind begins to grow smarter than your interbullies. It’ll take time but it will happen. Don’t give up. You’ll surprise them when you least expect it.

3). Don’t be bullied to be stupid with money. There’s a lot out there to taunt you to overspend or misuse credit. Stand your ground. Stick to a budget. The less you spend the more empowered you will become. The more secure you will become in your future. A bully should possess a negative net worth. Not you.

4). Discover your reinforcements. Seek and then never forget what/who supports you. Understand the need to train for battle. Friends (some you never knew you had), exercise, a good diet, sleep, deep breaths,  meditation, reading, heartfelt discussion, all need to be employed as you fight the bullies around you. It’s ok to wallow in Yodels a bit (if you can find them); too many will weaken your body and spirit. Know when to shut down the devil’s food (which is a devil’s food).

I couldn’t feel anything. The larger Paulie grew in my line of sight, the more steadfast my pace. I wanted to flee in the other direction. I kept walking. Straight. Closer.

I recall closing my eyes briefly. I wasn’t going to run. I didn’t do anything wrong. If I got beat so be it. With all the adrenaline running through me I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have felt a thing. So it appeared to be an opportune time for a thrashing. I just wanted one good shot. One good kick. One surprise that would shake him.

I stopped near the rocking bully. He stopped rocking. About seven feet from him. I tried to move in but couldn’t. Frozen. He moved towards me.

He spoke. Rough Brooklyn. Mostly hoodlum. Mumbled.

“You talk to my girlfriend?”

“Yea,” I said. What was I going to say? “She’s in my homeroom class.”

“I know people. I’m related to gangsters. You understand that?”

I knew that.

“I know people too. I hang out at Torragrossa’s Funeral Home. I watch them embalm dead people after school. You think my mother could get a discount if you kill me?”

I continued before he could say another word:

“You’ll need to realize I won’t die so easy though. If I can take you with me, I will,” I said. No reason why. Anger perhaps. All I know is I meant it at the time.

I had nothing to lose.

At that moment his girlfriend, my friend, ran up (reinforcements) and screamed at him not to touch me or it was over between them. He backed off.

A few weeks later I found out that he was a bit scared of me after that incident. It wasn’t his girlfriend’s threats. It was the fact that I watched the embalming process. It was a bit of information he wasn’t expecting. It was a surprise. A shock.

Bullies hate surprises. Shocks. The truth.

And apparently the embalming process.

Who knew?

 

A Folded Cardboard Holiday. Four Ways to Stay Alive at Christmas.

I dislike Christmas. Not in a funny, green “Grinchy,” way either.

The holiday has clearly lost some of its sparkle for me, especially now, as cherished people I believed would be around for longer than a memory, decided to bail quickly from my inner wonderland. Clean gone. Like the three wise men who get misdirected by Apple Maps to the birthplace of Cee Lo Green instead of the second coming of you-know-who.

The problem with Christmas is it stirs ancient thoughts and the mental bias of anchoring. I dare you to gaze at a tree ornament you’ve unpacked this year, every year over the last ten and not recall ”the moment.”  A vivid memory of  how you felt when you received it, who gave it to you, where you bought it. The weather that day you hung it from your fake Christmas tree. The eye color, hair color, smell, of the person who bought the cheap holiday trinket for you; now the damn thing has a life of its own, it possesses a wealth of memories you would sooner forget.

And for most of the year you do. Until..

You resurrect the decoration from the plastic tomb stored in the garage. From a container marked “CHRISTMAS CRAP.” Then you “go back,” or anchor to “the moment,” again and usually it isn’t good. But you can’t throw this plastic memory bank away, so you sullenly hang it from a tree branch this year. Again. Relive the pain.

Stab me with candy cane every year, it’s ok. I can take it. This year after exhuming a memory, I lost track of time and space. It was silly when I realized I had been sitting on the dusty floor of my garage for an hour and a half. Lost in space, lost in time, lost in “the moment.”

 Awww

Even cardboard can push the past into the present. The other day at a friend’s house, a collector of vintage kitsch, a flood of memories washed over me. There in the corner, looking as new as the ancient day it was originally folded out was a Christmas adornment I haven’t seen or remembered in years. Yet, when I noticed it, I went back in time immediately. I went speeding through time, a return to 1972 when I first received my very own cardboard and electric (what a lethal combo)

Fireplace!!!!!

It was a lousy Christmas that year. My mother after a binge of booze and pills came home from God-knows-where, focused on the fake Christmas tree I just finished decorating, picked it up from the middle like some form of petite, brunette elf weightlifter and flung it out the third-floor living room window.

I think there were like 6,000,000 lights secured around this thing. In fact, there were so many light sets attached that when the plastic pine cliff diver advanced from the window, one of the light strings got caught on the way down causing the tree to temporarily swing about 10 feet from the ground like some type of evil holiday pendulum.

Then two days later, on December 27, a favorite cousin visited. A savior of sorts. He brought the fireplace along with small, wrapped gifts I never expected. On December 27, I had Christmas revisited thanks to Michael. We unfolded the fireplace, secured the lightbulb behind the fake flame. It might as well had been the real thing. The warmth was the same. A cousin saved my holiday. I never forgot.

Random Thoughts:

1). Tell People you Love them. Now. Today. Even when they don’t feel the same. Even if they walk away. Even if they don’t respond.Today is the day to tell them exactly what they mean to you and you’ll be there for them because your heart and soul can’t change. It won’t change. Don’t compromise.

2). Christmas is not a day, or a holiday, it’s a mindset. The harsh glow of bad memories are ok even if they pierce you like extra-pointed ends of holly. The rotten ones are tough yet you must look behind them and work hard find the lessons that move you forward. Embrace what was and analyze how it made you the person you are today.

3). In times of despair, who will save your holiday? Be open to the signs. Be open to those you’ve been closed to before. You never know the lessons they’ll teach you, the memories they’ll create for you when you unpack the ornaments next Christmas.

4). Now is the time to tie up loose ends. With people. With money. Step back. Sever or foster ties with those who create energy, and cut away the ones who take it away. On occasion, you’ll be the one who’s cut and never truly understand why. There’s a humility, a frailty to being cut. It feels hopeless. Like a Christmas tree cast from upper floors. Then, out of nowhere – hope emerges.

At the end of the year, it’s a good idea to double-check the beneficiaries on your retirement accounts and life insurance policies. It’s also an opportune time to decide how you’re going to increase your contributions to retirement plans or work to pay off credit card debt in the new year.

My middle name is Michael. I demanded my mother have it changed after that Christmas. She obliged out of guilt. It was a way to always keep a special cousin in my heart.

After losing contact with my favorite cousin years ago, I found out last year that Michael died in 2008. Alone. From AIDS. In a motel room in upstate New York. He was dead for a week before they found him.

I wasn’t there. I never knew.

I missed my chance to tell him how much I loved him. How much he saved me that day. I sent a thought to him, as I stared at a friend’s cardboard fireplace. I asked Michael to forgive me. I thanked him for what he did for me.

Don’t miss your chance.

Today’s the day..

Your day to unfold love, gratefulness, blessings.

A day to find your fireplace. Your hearth.

Do it.