part 53

***TRIGGER ALERT***

I am angry. No, I am ANGRY.

What I’m feeling, though, is not painful or completely consuming, so that’s kind of new for me. Pretty much I just feel angry. I feel angry about specific circumstances I can identify easily. I am angry at specific people I can identify easily.

With all of the rage I grew up with, that is not how it was. That rage followed me into adulthood. I was angry all the time, and it was in my blood, and I was just generally angry at everything. Sometimes it would be specific, like when I was driving or unhappy about not getting my way, but mostly it was just general.

It has been really difficult – because even far into adulthood, I would just start freaking out randomly, melting down, throwing a tantrum. The most ridiculous things could set me off on tirades that only big giant assholes have. I realize I am saying that I have been a big giant asshole. That is okay, because it is true. I might not like it, and I may owe apologies all over the planet, and I may be scared about what people will think of me, and I may have perfectly sound psychoanalytical explanations for that behavior, and I may be incredibly uncomfortable just thinking about it at all. None of that will change the fact that I have been a big giant asshole.

I don’t think I am a big giant asshole right now – I hope to never be a big giant asshole in the future. I sincerely believe that being a big giant asshole is not okay. Still doesn’t change that I, on one or more occasions, have been a big giant asshole.

A refusal to acknowledge what is true and what is real does not make what is true and what is real cease to exist. It is possible to do horrible things to other people, and they never get undone, no matter who or what wants to pretend otherwise.

People have committed horrendous crimes against other people, but were not convicted because there was not enough evidence against them. Does that mean the horrendous crimes didn’t actually happen? That maybe something happened that admittedly wasn’t great, but it also just wasn’t these horrendous crimes? That nothing at all happened, and the victim is making the whole thing up?

The answer to that question is an unequivocal NO.

The truth is the truth and what is real is real. The distortion of the truth and what is real has been the primary method of concealing the fact that people rape babies every day (this is not inflammatory language – it is the truth). It has also concealed the fact that people can inappropriately touch children and can hurt them, but that there will be no repercussions for the perpetrator.

This happens every day. People hurt children terribly every day. Rich people, poor people, middle class people, educated people, white people, American people, Christian people, hard-working, salt-of-the-earth people – REAL people.

Why are we so quick to turn real people and real events into imaginative misconceptions of children? Why do we do that? Why, as an entire society, do we let that happen?

I don’t know. But it still happens. It happened to me. It has probably happened to more than one person who will read this. It is happening right now – someone is hurting a child right now, and it could very likely be happening within a five mile radius of where you are sitting.

Why aren’t we doing anything? Because we really aren’t. When so many children are hurt by so many people and no one does anything to make it stop, that means that we are allowing that behavior. We are saying, hey – it’s okay to digitally penetrate your five year old neighbor, because there are people all around that five year old who are choosing not to see it happening.

Doing something about it might spark a lawsuit, or make living in the neighborhood uncomfortable, or make people in our own families feel uncomfortable. “Doing something” is also known as “rocking the boat,” and nobody wants to rock the boat, even at the expense and dignity of a five year old child.

Fuck that shit. I have the truth and reality on my side, and I may get my ass kicked, but I have experienced much worse before. I am not going to sit down and shut up when today I have a voice and a choice to use it, and when there are so, so many children – so many people - out there who are silenced and have no choice at all.

Bring it.