Monday, June 9, 2014

My movie sped forward for a bit, my shirt was removed and I saw the gaping rips that resembled a bear's violent claw mark.  I was treated and my mom was contacted.
And the part that makes me detail this account, is that a few days later, when I returned to school, I was made to stand before my classmates and asked to carefully raise my shirt.
I was made an example of.  I was an instruction to every other kid of why we are supposed to follow the rules and not do stupid stuff.
The camera in my movie shifted to "someone else's view" and for the first time ever, I was able to see myself, standing there before the blackboard, my shirt raised and three monstrous gashes truly resembling a bear attack, displayed for all to see.
I remember this being a real turning point in my life.  I heard my own thoughts again and they were all about making good decisions and trying to prevent others in my life from making bad decisions.
Somehow I had become like an instructor.  Through my pain, others could see consequences and I think I vowed to myself that day, that I would try my hardest, to always realize what I was doing, and comprehend any possible dangers associated with my decisions.
When I went to recess that day, I wasn't surprised to see that weeping willow tree, trimmed to nowhere near the fence line.  No kids were lined up to swing and even if you had climbed the fence again, there was nothing anywhere remotely close to grasping.
The audience behind me laughed again as the movie showed the next "entire school" assembly where the rule about staying off the fences was reinforced, and I was once again displaying my claw marks (as that's what I was calling them by then).

I watched as I advanced through school, I relived the days when my parents fought and eventually separated.
I think I felt every emotion possible as the movie went on and on.
I saw my first real girlfriend, crying because of something mean I had said.
I saw my little brother cry when I crashed as I tried to hold him on my lap on a moped my friend let me borrow.
I saw and heard everything, from my first sexual encounter to a boring day at a factory job I hated.

Every car accident, every time I sat in a hot tub, my favorite meals, every friend I had ever had.

I remember thinking, this is the best movie I've ever seen.
Nothing was left out and at times, I wondered if the audience behind me should really be seeing this.
My inner fears, my secrets, every time I masturbated or looked at pornography, every time I pictured my Spanish teacher naked as she rehearsed conjugations.

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