Take A Punch

(No, seriously, take a punch)

He had that cocky hood smirk as we circled each other on the prison yard. Why we were fighting was irrelevant. What mattered was that this was a public spectacle. Every man to the last in the crowd surrounding us had picked a side and howled for blood. This is because what had begun as a personal beef had become part of a larger war.

His reach and size advantage meant I had to get in close. Exactly where I preferred to be. We both knew what we were doing and were good at it. I lived in his ribs while every shot he fired was meant to be a fight-ender. His history proved this to be a solid strategy for him. Everyone knew he was a sandman.

I saw his haymaker punch just before it made contact but it was too late to dodge. It caught me on the side of my face like a meteorite. The world spun like smearing oil paint around me, I stumbled backwards, yet I didn't fall. I shook my head clear and suddenly realized that I had just “ate” his best. My eyes met his and I recognized that he was having the exact same thought as his cocky hood smirk disappeared.

There is no better feeling in life than surviving something that should've beaten you. The joy of ‘taking a punch’.

As someone who was born in 1980, I'm a member of the last free generation. The Feral generation as I like to call us. My childhood predated the internet, social media, cell phones and everything that comes with those inventions. My mom didn't know where I was, I had no guardrails or restrictions. I was like a customer in Home Depot and the staff were my parents. No help is coming.

Yet I survived.

Not only that, in spite of my tribulations, I thrived. Yes, I made every wrong decision possible and suffered consequences beyond imagining. Yet you only know about that because I share it recreationally. Something I can do because I'm completely free of trauma. Something that's only possible because I learned to “take a punch”, metaphorically and literally speaking.

It's because of my outlandishly “awful” childhood, (I don't personally view it that way) the unbelievably difficult life that followed and the amazing place I landed when it was all done that I wish for each of you suffering. That wasn't a typo. Buckle-up, I'm going somewhere with this.

People don't know how to fail, how to lose, how to get beat within an inch of their life. I'm sorry if you haven't experienced those. This applies both figuratively and literally. I try to give a measure of this to my own children.

Them: “I scraped my leg”, “my boyfriend dumped me”, “they just laid me off at work”.....

Me: ”Yeah, but did you die?”

Everyone is so babied and coddled. We act like bad things aren't supposed to happen. We think we don't deserve it. Why? Who told you it's supposed to be easy? You put that myth into your head? Life owes you absolutely nothing and it's superstition that makes you think it does.

Our parents, generally speaking, made the mistake of believing it was their job to shelter us and see to it we're happy. Then we made the same mistake with our kids. We think that happiness is a natural state in the absence of suffering. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you that you're wrong. You may think it's happiness you're feeling but that's such a watered-down version it wouldn't even measure as mild amusement for someone who's actually been through the ringer. What you're experiencing is room temperature water if it were an emotion.

Happiness is the result of overcoming and, more potently, of surviving. It comes from the contrast of knowing the difference. That's joy. It's a perspective that takes, “I can't believe this is happening to me” and turns it into, “huh, that wasn't so bad”.

Everyone is indecisive or anxious or depressed or whatever condition you've convinced yourself you have. Guess what, everyone feels those things. The problem is you convinced yourself that yours is worse. It's because you haven't taken a punch. Take this literally if you'd like or as a metaphor but you need to have your bell rung so you can rub some dirt on it or walk it off or whatever ‘get over it' phrase you prefer.

When I was a teen, a man once broke 2 of my ribs with a pipe so he could rob me. I laid on the ground gasping for air and trying to laugh because one, I had no money to steal and two, I recognized him as someone I had once robbed. He clearly didn't remember me as he ran my pockets and the tears in my eyes weren't from the pain. That's the happiness that comes from being able to take the punch and keep things in perspective. When you can take a punch both physically and, far more importantly, mentally and emotionally, there's no such thing as trauma.

When my mom told me to get out because she was going to kill herself and my dad had to be the one to find her, I didn't wear her crazy because it didn't belong to me. That was her hat to wear. I grabbed my bookbag, told her “why you always gotta be a drama queen” and left. Yes, that's an extreme example but my whole life is an extreme example. The point is I took that mental and emotional punch and now it's not some latent trauma that I'm unconsciously dumping onto my own kids. “Hey, someone made me sad, now I'm going to yell at you for some reason!!!”.

We're all the way down to just 38% of people saying they're happy. All that statistic tells me is that only 38% of people learned how to deal with life on its terms. A portion of you let the pain eat you alive and the rest of you, the majority in my opinion, never dealt with it in the first place.

If you can't put a positive spin on the bad you've experienced, you're doing it all wrong. If you can't smile with a bloody mouth, I feel sorry for you because there is no better feeling in life than surviving something that should've beaten you. The joy of taking a punch.