My Goals are Mine.

I have three huge goals I’m pursuing. They are dreams I want to come true. I’m not telling you about them until well after the fact. Yesterday, my partner reminded me of a study that determined that talking too openly about ambitions and goals releases the same sets of brain chemicals that are released when you actually achieve a goal. Basically, talking about your goals too much tells your brain and body that you’re satisfied, and then you discover that goal doesn’t blossom into fruition. Your goal is talked to death.

I know this is true because I’ve personally done this so many times. I can recall at least a dozen things I’ve wanted to do that never happened. Oh, I talked about those things endlessly and with great enthusiasm. What do I have to show for it? Nothing. The old adage is often true: words are cheap.

When it comes to goals, I need action and less talking. I need steps and lists and discipline, not more talking. Our society talks too much and does so little. We endlessly talk about curing cancer, healing the environment, ending domestic violence, funding the arts, etc. None of it happens. I believe we talk things to death.

My goals are mine. Your goals are yours. Tell me about them after you’ve reached them, and I’ll do the same.

An Open Letter of Forgiveness for the Boy at Anderson University

I moved into the room at the end of the hall on the west side of the 1st floor of Smith Hall in January of 1991. The exit door was just outside of this room. School was not going well, and I was struggling academically, spiritually, and physically. Everyone thought that having a private room would be a benefit to me. No one thought it would become a nightmare.

I don’t remember your name, but I remember you. Your face and hands. Your goatee. Your smiling eyes. You were handsome and looked like someone I’d want to get to know. I liked that you lived right next door.

It started innocently enough: I bumped into you leaving the showers one morning right after the semester had started. You scowled. I said I was sorry.

You started to harass me that night. Around 9:00pm, the first “thud” landed on my door, followed by another. I quickly ran to see who it was, and you were standing there grinning, hands balled into fists. I asked you what was going on, and you replied, “Just having some fun.”

I went back into my room, and closed and locked the door. The TV was on, and I tried to do some homework. You kept banging on my door all night. That was the night I stopped sleeping.

A couple of weeks passed, and you’d – thankfully -- ignore me in the halls and on campus.

Then you started again.

I don’t recall the exact day, but it was late and during the school week. I heard this screamed in the hall: “FAGGOT!” I made sure the door was locked. I turned the TV on and closed the blinds. I drowned myself in television and books to muffle what you were saying in the hall to your friends: “A FAGGOT lives next to me.” You said it over and over like a child might do when they are shocked or scared.

The next morning, after I made sure you had left the dorm, I went to speak to the resident director. I was told he would talk to you, and that I should just be careful around you.

Things escalated after that.

I got up to shower one morning, and I was “pennied” into my room. During the night, you and your friends had wedged pennies into the door frame, thus locking the door to the frame and preventing me from leaving. Hours passed. Everyone I knew was at class or ignored my calls for help as they would pass my door. Around Noon, someone finally said, “I’ll get you out.” I thanked the stranger, and spent the rest of the day hiding in the theatre department, reading fiction in the green room. I didn’t return to my dorm until 2 or 3 in the morning.

You started banging on the wall between our rooms, and I would occasionally hear you mutter “faggot” in a low tone. A friend stopped by one night to read a play with me. After he left, you were standing outside of my door, smirking. When the friend left, you asked me about my “faggot” friends. I ignored you and shut my door and locked it. This was the beginning of weeks of daily taunting. I eventually became a prisoner in my room.

I skipped classes, and cried all day and night. The school did nothing. I was told I might be at fault for provoking you. That remark felt like a punch. What had I done to you other than not living a lie?

Weeks passed as I lived in my prison, not leaving until you had left for the day, and returning with books and food before you’d be back from baseball practice. I showered in the middle of the night, and only went to the restroom when I knew you’d be away.

Then you declared war on me.

It was March, and there was still snow on the ground. It was a Friday evening. I got dressed, bundled up, and headed to the exit next to my room. I felt my knees buckle as I reached for the door. I fell. Something whizzed by my head and struck the wall beside me. Then something struck my head. An eternity passed. I remember walking out the door. I didn’t feel any pain. My head was wet and I thought that was just the snow and ice. Someone screamed “FAGGOT” from the 2nd floor window above the door, and I walked into the cold, snowy darkness.

I don’t know what happened that evening other than returning to my dorm at some late hour and finding the back of my shirt and coat soaked with my own blood.

I rarely left my room again. The days and weeks melted into each other. I was failing every class. I was building walls so thick that not even the best of friends could reach me.

You never let up. You never halted your assaults.

I moved out of the dorm as soon as I could, one Saturday morning. I dropped out of school and moved home.

You haunted my nightmares for years.

But no more.

I forgive you, dear boy. I forgive your fear, and your fists, and the baseball bat that struck my head. I forgive your screams and your taunts. I can’t imagine how you came to know such hate, and I pray for you daily.

I’ve tried hating you, and all that are like you, but I can’t. My heart can’t hate you, because all hate can do is create cancer in your soul.

Dear boy, with the smiling eyes and the handsome face, I forgive you. I have a life to live, and it’s time to let you go. I’ve carried you in my heart for far too long.

I wish you peace, and I sincerely hope you find it.

You are forgiven.