On revisiting past events or regurgitating difficult histories...

While showering after terminating Amy Tan's most recent novel "The Valley of Amazement" (read in Spanish) I had this sense that I had dreamed something connected with my childhood last night...  The feeling was surprising, since I hadn't awakened thinking about the dream and had passed 5 hours awake without thinking about what I may have dreamed last night...

It turns out that I was "revisited" by my first childhood bully (outside of my household) who began the ball rolling of my ostracizement, alienation and anti-Semitism in the second grade.  Of all the children who picked on me in elementary school and middle school Tommy Murray frightened me the most.  And when I think of the stereotyped faces of Nazis, Russian or Polish anti-Semites I imagine a face like his... Although, truthfully, his face was that of Scotts-Irish decent with the red hair and pinkish freckled face...  

In the dream we were adults in an adult world somewhere between Mexico and New Jersey... Somehow I had stumbled across Tommy and his henchmen (all bullies are surrounded by henchmen) in public space and it was announced that I must fight him later on in the day causing a dilemma I had experienced with another bully in 8th grade, certainly described in this blog.  You may ask, "why dilemma?"

The children picked on in school or on the play ground or the bus stop etc, don't seek out the bullies for creating conflict.  In as much as the bully generates hate in the picked-upon kid, and that child may have fantasies of being able to KO the bully, the picked-upon would prefer avoiding potential contact and attention by the bully.  Plus, bullies generally select children who are already suffering something or another, showing a certain amount of insecurity in their stance...  

In 8th grade, when Mike Szmanski gave me a time and place for fighting him after school, although I hadn't done anything that required a "duel" between the two of us, I found myself in a dilemma... The dilemma of fleeing or fighting...  But, truthfully, I didn't want to fight...  

Regarding Tommy Murray and comparing him with Mike Szmanski at the time, I know that Mike wouldn't have fought Tommy because Mike wasn't truly aggressive... He was one of those semi-popular kids who wanted more attention.  He was just a semi-athletic cream puff... He was full of hot air.  Tommy on the other hand was clearly dangerous...  and he had developed the reputation of being a fearless fighter...  I wasn't a fighter... In fact, at the time I was just trying to "fight back" against my mother and my sisters and the small bullies my size...  

In the dream I found myself in my Nissan pick-up in a parking lot soon to fill up with "neighborhood folk" appearing for a public event I believe was a rock concert.  Unlike Tommy, I had no henchmen surrounding me, encouraging me, supporting whatever move I made.  Part of me said that I must fight him and hopefully it wouldn't turn out so bad, although I knew what those chances were... Not fighting him wouldn't resolve the problem because it would only fuel the ostracizement and they would return repeatedly until he had the chance to plaster me...  It's better to get the inevitable over with...  and not prolong it... I didn't understand that in childhood and tended to procrastinate and make things linger on and on...  In the dream there was a certain sense of relief upon thinking about just getting it over with, although the eventual beating immediately slipped into my mind...  

The strange thing is that at the moment I was supposed leave the pick-up to meet with Tommy and his group, I noticed that cars had parked so close to my pick-up that I couldn't open the doors enough to leave, nor through the windows...  

My immediate destiny was determined for me... It wasn't my decision...  But, it was inevitable...  There was nothing I could do for the moment.

Truthfully, the story doesn't interest me in as much as the placement of the dream:  I'm 46-years-old, so far away from that reality, laying asleep next to my wife Margarita who hasn't had the fortune of being able visit the places of my youth to get a little bit of a sense of where I came from...  

Why have such intense, vivid and difficult dreams about things you would say have nothing to do with the present... That aren't my current interests.  I don't think about Tommy Murray frequently...  But, it is clear that he had a certain important role in part of my childhood development.  And because of that, he appeared in the dream as he did... the only form in which I knew him... so long ago.  

One of the diagnostic criteria of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is recurrent nightmares... or flashbacks...  Last night's dream was a flashback...  What role does it serve?  In my current health situation...

At the moment I don't have the "luxury" of spending time on the far past and those difficulties.  Truthfully, the difficulties that have arisen since March render all past traumas virtually obsolete, with the exception of those events' possible contribution to the lesioning of my coronary arteries....  But aside from that, I don't believe I have space, time or energy untangling certain knots created in my childhood, adolescence and early adulthood.  There isn't anything of the past to "resolve"...  There aren't bye-gones to let be bye-gones...  Time has been cut short.  All that's truly important is how I feel today and what comes tomorrow... short-term planning, if I have that luxury.

Yesterday José "Montaña" said to me, "don't worry.  You'll find that you still have many years left of life and will see your 70s..."  I responded, "José, you know I don't appreciate trite, insignificant statements... It would be different if I knew that person was psychic and they could see into my future.  But, you weren't making that statement based upon something you truly sensed..."  He didn't contradict me...  And I said, "I'm not complaining or whining.  It's just something I know.  My body was created with a self-destruct button or programmed premature death...  It's something I must try and accept."

How much does it have to do with past experience? I don't know.  Maybe the time bomb would have exploded regardless of what occurred in my childhood and adolescence; what was done to me and what I did to myself..."  We can't know this stuff.  I believe the impetus to fill one's life with dense quality and production increases the velocity towards death, as I believe I see in my father's and my uncle Henry's stories.  Although my Uncle Henry outlived my father 22 years...  But, I do believe that those who don't fill their days with productivity and learning, thinking and developing themselves or their families or careers or business etc, who spend their time just watching the leaves fall from the trees or engage in frivolous activities, live longer lives...   The pressure to use every possible minute of the waking hours constructively/productively brings us closer to our deaths, although we believe that maybe we are more satisfied with our lives...  

I believe that I wasted a lot of time in childhood into adulthood... Who knows?  Maybe that's part of what allowed me to live to the age of 46...  In as much as I may feel regret of not having accomplished more in my life or accomplished something more important, such as having become a doctor, I now realize that it really doesn't matter, because I would have brought my death that much earlier...  Afterall, it's programmed in...  

What can we say about the bullying in school and at home?  The abuse by my uncle or my mother?  The death of my father... the inheritance of his illness or illnesses...  Maybe they were just necessary distractions or other spiritual lessons...  I don't know if it really matters...  I guess it does in some form... at least for those studying the outcomes of PTSD, especially for those connecting childhood trauma with adulthood heart disease...

How many times in childhood did I have my heart broken?  The broken heart is both symbolic and metaphorical.  But, those medical anthropologists studying PTSD and how it affects the body physiologically may see that it is much more literal than symbolic and metaphorical...  Truthfully it doesn't really matter if my heart was broken when my father died or when my mother became as she did or when the family neglected my small child fears and needs within the situation and never wanted to understand my side of the horrible experience...  Truthfully, it doesn't matter because no understanding of the situation will change the damage it produced on my heart...  No one will return me to the reality I was living upon returning from Sayulita last March 11th; what Margarita and I were talking about; the hope and the planning...  Little did I know that it was too late...  

How many times in childhood did you find yourself riding your bike and then without any warning you feel a thumping of the back tire because a bubble had appeared suddenly.  And before you know it, the bubble suddenly pops and you've gotta walk your bike miles back home to fix the flat...?  Did you know that the tube inside the tire had a defect or was worn?  Absolutely not!

I guess that's what I discovered between March 12th and March 14th...  I couldn't believe it!  I didn't want to believe it...

Now tell me:  What experience of bullying or child abuse/neglect/alienation/isolation is more important than this?  Tommy Murray?  Chris Love and Sheri or Craig and Sheri or Todd Golub and Tommy Murray or Mike Szmanski or all of those kids in summer camp or the other kids who ostracized me in elementary, middle and part of high school?  My uncle Stan...  A lot of histories... But, nothing is as traumatic and destructive as what truly destroys hope for the future and the present...  

Can you imagine walking around believing that your motor is about to blow?  If it were the brain, that would be a different story because its dysfunction would cause you to lose sense of reality, possibly relieving you from suffering, like with Alzheimers Disease...  

The palpitions appeared while working in San Luis Potosi.  And they got worse as the fair progressed.  Fortunately for me, the park within which I ran 3+ miles was a 10 minutes drive from where we lived and the fair and was in the middle of my shopping route... I didn't lose time in order to go out of my way for running...  It didn't cause me stress.  And when we closed the coffee bar at night, we walked relaxingly home to bed...  However, for some reason or another the palpitations began upon laying down to sleep.  And they increased in intensity... and caused problems falling asleep... And then I found them starting up again in the mornings upon awakening...  

So I'd go to the wonderful parque Tangamanga where I've run every August for 3 summers now and I would begin the run with a mantra:  I'd rather die running than die sleeping  It's true... It's about feeling that you are in "control" or proactive until the end...  Exercise is the only thing that gives me "a piece of mind"...  

When things became so much worse this past October during he fair of Guadalajara and the palpitations were begun or caused by the late night drive home from the fair, I found that the only way I could fall asleep in the wee hours of the night was if I did between 60 and 70 fast push-ups...  You would think that that is a bit risk considering the pressure the push-ups would place on my heart.  But I believe it is better to die of a heart attack doing something that makes you healthier in other ways and understanding that you did all you could... than to die of a heart attack feeling vulnerable and scared, relinquishing all your "power" to the problem...  

In childhood I didn't fight the bullies and the other kids... I didn't fight back.  I didn't know how to defend myself... This time around, although I may not find the solution/answers, there isn't one moment that I'm willing to procastinate encountering an adequate solution for improving the situation.  I refuse to be defenseless, allowing others to determine my destiny...  Yes, it's possible that two trucks parked too close to the doors of my pick-up all my life or ever since we returned from Sayulita... And my hands are tired... However, I will still consider kicking out the windows and sliding between the two vehiculos, even if that means I will fall face first into a mud puddle below...  

Fighting back feels much better than helplessly awaiting the other person's next move, the return of the bully and his henchmen...  

If I die running 3.5 miles today or on the rowing machine in our bed room tonight... I will not die a loser.

However, I do believe that we will have lost something very important... And I greatly worry about Margarita and her loss.  That's what worries and confounds me most these days... about preventing that loss for her... I lost my hope and wonderful expectations of 10 months ago...  I can't change that.  But, I'm battling the best I can so that she doesn't have to experience that loss so soon.  

Why did I dream with Tom Murray while sleeping alongside Margarita in our wonderful bed here in Guadalajara, Jalisco Mexico... especially if it has so little to do with our life here and our relationship?

Or is it that I'm missing a certain point?  Maybe its an important message to continue fighting for what is most important to me...  Something I hadn't done during childhood and adolescence...  I guess I didn't know what I would have been fighting for...

Ross