In sifting through some of the accumulation that’s just never been addressed, I happened across a strap of leather tied in a loop with a little knot at one end that secured a rather large nail.

This was an idea that somebody at Calvin College came up with, ostensibly around Good Friday, to remind us college students that we ought to be a tad bit more pious.

I’m not sure if that nail is meant to be a historically accurate replica of a crucifixion nail or if it’s just ugly-looking enough that it serves its purpose for tender modern minds–I’m not familiar with building supplies or Iron Age execution devices to know the difference… and neither does it particularly matter.

I don’t have any particular reason to keep it anymore, but it’s interesting that I kept it at all. It tells me quite a lot about how desperate I was to continue belief that I would hold on to a worthless trinket.

I think I must have seen it at some point over the past 10 years as it was located in a box with items that I know were repackaged at some point. As with so many of the items in those boxes I’ve been carting around, I would pick it up, sigh (externally or internally), and place it back in the box with the thought, “I will deal with this, later.”

To be clear, I am done with anything resembling personal religion. It’s not possible to believe in something that doesn’t exist, and my standards for truth involve empiricism and logic, not tradition or hysteria or other such things…

But the nail is a symbol of more than a bygone religiosity. There is a stack of paper 2 inches high of journal entries I have written over the years–and this stack is only what I’ve consolidated so far. The majority of that writing took place while I was in college, especially at Calvin, and throughout that writing is interwoven a relationship with “the Lord” most of the time, less frequently “Jesus” or “the Spirit”. I haven’t looked over them in detail in quite some time, and there are some pages that I’m sure I haven’t seen since the pen left the paper.

There is a sense of guilt and shame around those pages. I could destroy them, just as I’ve destroyed lots of other things… and if I were to discard them, I would destroy them, as they are nobody’s business but my own. I suppose it’s that the memories of those writings, with phrases catching my eye, evoke within me the feelings I had at the time, which were despair, shame, guilt, isolation, and depression… and, for the most part, those are the feelings that I am dealing with now in therapy.

These feelings and experiences certainly did not originate at Calvin; I had been experiencing them for years prior. It just so happened that being separated from my overbearing father allowed me to connect with my real experience of life, such as it was.

It is no surprise that he was so opposed to me living outside of his house. As with many other things, I doubt it was a conscious decision on his part. It was, in its most simplest form, the fear of being outed as an abuser. It certainly wasn’t care or concern about my well-being.

So, I look at this nail, and I look at those journal entries, and I reexperience those old feelings… and while I did experience them, I do not believe that they belong to me. I do not believe that the despair, guilt, shame, and depression I experienced were my actual feelings any more than the relationship I wrote about with god was real.

What would I as a young adult have to feel guilty about or ashamed of? My worst crimes in my life to that point were shouting at people and being late to class–the latter being almost a thing of identity, the former being rare as I spent little time interacting with others.

The things I felt the most guilt and shame around were things that I should have been able to appreciate, enjoy, and celebrate: sexuality; creative skills; lack of faith; skepticism; relaxation.

These are simply not organically shameful things. Organically shameful things include things like murder, rape, assault, lies, and corruption. Those are things you should feel shame for, and they are also things which people strive to avoid feeling shame for.

Given the degree to which I felt guilt and shame, despair and depression were inevitable, and I am lucky that I did not succumb to depression’s ultimate goal. I don’t actually know what kept me going all those years except for possibly a fear of immediate physical pain, or a lifetime of paralysis if I was unsuccessful.

I will offer a slight correction regarding despair here that just occurred to me. Given the evidence I had at the time, despair was entirely appropriate. It was not until I was introduced to a new experience of life that I was able to question my despair, for though it had not taken root in an immediate demise, it had ground me to a stop such that movement was unnecessary and undesired.

I have since begun to move again… and I no longer need this nail.

Dear Kalap,

It’s been almost twenty years since we last saw each other, I think.

I want to apologize for my actions on the playground that day. I also want to tell you a bit about what was going on for me.

It’s not to excuse what I did, but perhaps the perspective into my life will help you in some way.

On the surface, the same racist assholes who were teasing you were asking me, when you weren’t around, “Why are you friends with Kalap?”

The right answer–the assertive answer–would be, among others: “Because he doesn’t ask me why I’m friends with people that I like.”

However, as you well know, I did not give the right answer. I hunkered down, I tried to shrink into myself, hoping they would go away, but they never did.

As a test of friendship, I did fail you on that day; in my defense, however, I was equipped against a successful friendship.

My parents had recently divorced, and my father’s advice about bullies was something like, “Don’t let them get to you,” which is just about the same as saying to somebody standing in the rain, “Don’t get wet,” while refusing to let them stand under your umbrella.

I had no other friends to talk to about it… and I don’t think I talked to you, either. At the very least, I don’t remember talking to you about it at all.

So indeed, I did fail that test… but the test of integrity and loyalty was so incredibly difficult, it probably would have been some sort of small miracle if I had passed.

I hope that this brings you some clarity about what happened almost twenty years ago. I hope it brings a little peace, and perhaps some relief, if even but a small bit.

I cannot repair the damage, it is too long gone. I can only offer a salve to soften the scar.

All the best,

James Alexander Pyrich

Memory from age 5 or 6:

Seems that it takes place at the elementary school I attended in Totowa, NJ. There was a girl, I think her name was Laura. I can’t remember if she was older or younger than me, but I remember that we enjoyed playing together.

Then, one day we were separated forcibly. Two adults were dragging her away, and we were both in tears. I can’t remember if it was because she was moving somewhere or if it was because we weren’t allowed to play with each other anymore… but I remember it being very sad.

More than that, of course, is that I don’t remember anybody ever taking the time to talk to me about how I felt. I don’t remember if anybody was restraining me or who it would have been; it could have been my parents. Whoever it was, they didn’t take a moment to talk to me about how my feelings.

Memory from first grade:

I was teased a LOT in school. Like, every day on the playground, and oftentimes in the classroom. My father and the teachers and the counselors would basically imply that I was bringing the teasing upon myself, but fuck them all–nobody was bothering to protect me from these other children.

One day, the teasing during lunchtime recess was so bad that I refused to come inside after recess was over. I was sitting on the blacktop, right next to the grass with my back to Peterson Road, my arms wrapped around my knees, just crying. The teacher was yelling at me to come inside, but I still stayed outside.

Finally, she walked out of the classroom, picked me up, and brought me inside. I’m pretty sure that I would have spent the rest of the day (at least!) just staring at my desk.

I think I get why the teacher did what she did–she felt an obligation to keep order in the classroom, and would have been held responsible for my safety if something were to happen to me. Thus, she felt a lot of anxiety. Instead of examining her anxiety, however, she decided to humiliate me. She never, ever spoke about the incident with me, never talked with me about how the other children treated me, nor did she ever approach my parents with concerns other than “Jimmy doesn’t play well with the other children” (which is a way of framing me as the problem, not the system).

I know there’s more to dig out of these memories. I will say that these are very sad memories, and very painful memories. They’re mere reflections of my home life at the time, of course, which I consider a psychic wasteland full of powerful predators.

Thanks for reading.

Wherein I attempt to reconnect with my experience of home as a child…

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Mr. Grimes was my fourth grade math teacher. I think that I had him for other subjects, but mathematics was the one I recall.

He was teaching the solution form for subtraction. In particular, he was demonstrating how you would borrow from the column to the left in order to perform a simple subtraction (cross off the number to the left, decrement it, and put a “1″ by the number in the column you’re working in).

What I noticed, however, was his use of the number “9″ as the minuend (yeah, I had to look that one up). Since it was in the “ones” column, I noticed that you would never, ever need to borrow from the column to the left with a “9″ on top.

So, I raised my hand and pointed this out. I can’t remember exactly the exchange that took place, but I do remember that I ended up feeling humiliated in the exchange. I think I caught him off guard, because I do remember him trying to not appear embarrassed. However, instead of saying, “Oops, let’s choose a better example,” he chose to make me the bad guy for pointing out his poor choice of an example.

Oh, Mr. Grimes… do you still go out of your way to humiliate children in an effort to save face?