Punch Taking 101: What you know by 40...

...is how to take a punch.

In my 30 minutes of scheduled writing time today, I had a deeper reflection on a story that has been a part of what I share when I speak with young people.

In 8th grade, at McMain Magnet junior high school, I got punched so hard that, 26 years later, my jaw still clicks if I open it too wide.  It was a vicious, punishing blow thrown by Chris, a kid 8 inches taller and 80 pounds heavier than I was.  The kid was a bully in the traditional sense.  He was not cyber or a politically incorrect meanie.  He was violent.  He was 15 and in 8th grade and no doubt pissed about that fact and whatever life circumstances had landed him there.  And I was a proxy.  I can see that now.  But then, I just hated the fact that Chris existed. 

The morning leading up to this punch included, among other pubescent drama, a morning argument with my mom.  She was going to make me go to Benjamin Franklin for 9th grade when all I wanted for fall was to wear the grey and white tie, the white button down of the Aug.  That would be St. Augustine High, the all boys school that carried weight at New Orleans bus stops.  On the bus, boys from the Aug stood out.  Girls noticed.  On the football field, they were kings.  Girls noticed.  During Mardi Gras, they were the show.  Girls noticed.  But I got into Ben Franklin, then and now the best high school in Louisiana, and mama was like "Uh, you're going to Franklin."

One of the reasons I wanted to go to St. Aug was that I thought I would learn all the real boy stuff I didn't feel I was getting from my father or my big brother, a former seminarian and current academic studying for his Ph.d and an actor winning national speech and debate competitions, respectively.  I thought the Aug would make me manly and, thusly, a popular hottie to the girls on the bus.  And I knew Franklin would make me more nerdy, and, thusly, a popular target with bullies on the bus.

So anyway, I'm pissed about this and here comes Chris down the hall.  I was not in the mood.  I turned to face my locker.  As he passed me, he shoved my head against my locker and I snapped.  I turned around and yelled "Forget this!  Come on!" (clean version) I raised my set, my hands balled up above my cheeks, cocked and ready to throw with him.

I didn't even see the right cross coming.  The pain was instant and severe.  My head started throbbing.  My jaw felt as though it was swelling by the millisecond.

I wish I could tell you this was like an after school special.  That I fought this dude and put up such a brave fight or got in such a good blow that he respected me from that day forward.  But Saved by the Bell, Eleanor McMain Magnet was not.  And this was a real, New Orleans bully.  And after that punch, I was done.

But, I didn't cry (nothing against crying, I'd cried at school for much less) or collapse in a heap.  I didn't run to a teacher (nothing against seeking adults for help, by definition a victim can't be a "snitch").  But what I did do, shook Chris more than any punch my linguini arms could have thrown.

I laughed.  I laughed dead in his face.  Now I wish I could say I pulled some Rambo as a hostage crap and said "That's all you got?!?"  But no.  I said "I'm just playing," and lightly punched his shoulder in the most joking manner I could muster with half my face feeling like it had been knocked clean around the back of my neck.  I turned and walked down the hall, every person I passed looking at me incredulously like they could not have seen what they just saw.  I looked back to make sure he wasn't coming for me and saw that Chris had dropped his hands and raised an eyebrow.  He never messed with me again.

Now, I like to think he saw that I could take his best punch and laugh, that I took it and didn't even wobble, that I took it and walked off to class like nothing happened, and thought, "That's a tough little dude."  Back then though, I was so embarrassed, so afraid that I was the most punkish dude on the planet.  Between then and now I've gotten some perspective on that punch.  Most times you don't need to know Jujitsu, discreet math, or Kantian ethics.  You just need to know how to take a punch.

Right now, 39 days from 40, I know how seminal that moment was.  I didn't need St. Aug or some testosterone drenched household to teach me to be tough.  Life had that job on lock.  Since that punch, I've been hit much harder by love and death and trouble.   I've slammed my own head up against walls with less mercy than that boy ever did.  What I have learned from Chris and the Grim Reaper and ladies who shall remain nameless, is that I can take some punches.  And whether I hit back or laugh, whether I run or drop to my knees and pray for God's mercy...

I will survive to take what I learn with me.  And I will share the blessing of wisdom everywhere I've found it.

This is what you know by 40.