Unique

I was once weak. Now I am STRONG! I was the "different" kid at school. Found it difficult to make friends. That was mostly because I was embarrassed by where we lived and what we owned. I also knew I liked boys a little too much more than was normal for the other boys. My mother did her best with what she had, and I will always now regret my simplemindedness! But as children we all have to have the latest this and that in order to find our sense of belonging. I was not fortunate in that regard. She sacrificed so much to provide the little she could and I LOVE her more for it.

I was bullied at school. I was a skinny little rat and was always the target of abuse by the stronger boys. I never played the usual boy's games like cricket or rugby, yes, maybe because I was scared, but mostly because I was TOLD TO! I am salmon, I swim upstream! Do not tell me I have to do something just because everyone else is doing it. Anyway, I'm digressing...

I battled through primary school and when I enetered High School unfortunately the status-quo remained unchanged. It actually got worse! There was this really mean kid who got an instant hard-on to fucking me around. This went on through my first couple years and was really having an impact on my confidence and self-esteem. One day at lunch break the mean kid launched into a full on physical attack. I had always thought that faced with such aggression I would buckle and fold. Basically I would  piss my pants and cry like a girl, and have mommy pick me up, in that horrbile canary yellow vintage Citroen we owned from the hospital, all bloodied and  bruised. Instead I stood firm, and with my right hand grabbed his throat and with all the might I could muster squeezed like there was no tomorrow. I went for his jugular! My action caught him completely by surprise and he gasped and gasped for air. I had found his Achilles Heel. In front of the entire school he was rendered useless.

Needless to say, he was expelled. Three strikes and you're out. Very American Penal Code I might add ;-)...After that my life in school changed. I no longer had to look over my shoulder to see which bully was lurking in the corridor. I had gained acceptance within my peer group, which come to think about it is very Neanderthal. I decided soon after that, that the only person suffering from my self-imposed isolation was me. So I threw caution to the wind and decided to let other's into my personal space. I made friends...and easily to! I was no longer shackled to my own prison. I had gained the freedom of choice to be something I allowed myself not to be....this lesson I did not apply to my coming out the closet until many years after due to varying phobia's within my family unit!

And life continued. I moved north and while there decided I  needed to bulk-up. No one would ever take advantage of me like that again. And through blood, sweat and becoming nuclear powered, I built the physique I have today. I'm plutonium enriched and not ashamed to admit that. Years later, while on holiday I had the fortunate experience to bump into the mean kid from high school. He was a bouncer working the door of a local gay night-club. Irony can be cruel sometimes! On leaving the establishment, I walked straight up to him and asked him if he remembered me. I was a complete stranger to him. So I filled him in on the details surrounding our last encounter and requested we do it again for old times sake...A walk down memory lane so to speak...he declined. I was twice his size now you see...cowards never change their stripes!!!!

We are all different! Unique!! But just because we are does not make us less than those around us.....