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Running Away to Get Away
From Adolescence, Crimson Kings, and Poseidon
Most of us get cured of adolescence, though certain former leaders of the free world will never escape its clutches. I like to think I developed immunity to adolescent urges somewhere back in college, but even then I might be giving myself too much credit.
I think about the people I directly hurt all the time, and have reconciled myself to the understanding that they likely won’t ever forget or forgive, though again, I might be giving my own perspective of these memories too much privilege and ego.
Worse, I think, are the people I wronged who didn’t know that I wronged them. Or at least I think and hope they never did. Penance is living with what you’ve done, and I’ve lived a reasonably long life so far.
21st Century Schizoid Man
So think back with me. I was fifteen, a sophomore in high school, doing my best to avoid physical education class, where dressing out in the previous day’s sour clothes and then being forced to wrestle or play 20-on-20 football, basketball, or softball felt like a death sentence.
One of our coaches that year decided that before we did anything else that I hated, we had to run laps around the school. Our high school was a Soviet Union-style block of some brick material with…