Wrestling Also Causes a Rift Between Jake and Me

      Jake, the former Marine and my Mother’s current love interest was intrigued that I had joined the wrestling team. He was twenty-four at the time (he was six or seven years younger than my mother).

At the time he weighed a slim trim one hundred and fifty pounds at five foot seven inches in height. He was not a big man, nor was he robust like his brother… however, he had a temper and drive that sometimes imbued him with vicious strength.

      I wrestled varsity at the ninety-eight pound class. Jake, in a fit of big brother or fatherly type of roughhousing to bond with me… suddenly grabbed me and gleefully said he wanted to see how good of a wrestler I was.

      Memories of my own father’s disappointment of my dismal past athletic performance, compelled me to put out superhuman effort so the my mother’s new love interest would not see me in the same lackluster light that was the cause of my own father’s shame. My efforts were not fruitless and in fact I quickly had Jake on his back and pinned.

As he struggled I was determined all the more to earn his love or at least his admiration holding him helpless to eradicate himself from my grip.

      He became very angry and started cursing… demanding that I let him up immediately. His tone of voice filled me with fear and hurt, although for what reason, I could not fathom. Jake got up and tersely made an excuse as to why he had to leave. I was afraid that somehow I ruined the relationship between him and my mother. I was confused as to what had happened.  I knew it was something horrible and I knew that instead of admiration or at least acceptance, Jake would at one level; forever hold me at arms length.

      I was not sophisticated enough at the time to understand that to win in life, you have to be sharp enough to let people beat you… but only just enough so that you can still maintain their respect.

It would be years before I fully realized it was on that day… I crossed the line. I unintentionally hurt his pride of manly competence and what made the offense worse was that I did it as an almost thirteen year old one hundred pound kid just beginning to feel the effects of puberty.

      There were two other occasions to cement these hard feelings if the first had not been enough. Two years after our wrestling bout, someone had bought my brother and I a set of boxing gloves. Jake decided to take it upon himself to teach James the fine and manly art of boxing. James was eleven and I was fourteen and a husky one hundred and forty-five pounds.

      After Jake easily kept control over James, he decided to see what I could do.

I could tell he was tentative, but this would be different than wrestling; with boxing I was totally unskilled and inexperienced. Jake wanted us to really go at it, but he emphasized that we pull our punches; since he readily acknowledge that both of us were big enough to hurt each other.

      The specter of my real father shaming my pitiful and disappointing non

 athletic attempts when I was younger haunted me once again. A non-thinking needy part of me that craved acceptance and love from a father geared me into over-drive.

      Within a minute, after peppering his body and face, (lightly) without being touched by him… he emphatically demanded that the bout was finished.

I was uncertain at the time, but in retrospect I realize he was once again put out by my efforts.

      The third time was a year later, when Jake wanted to race me in a sprint and the intimation was to see if I somehow measured up to his expectations. He even cheated by jumping the gun, but stupid needy me… wanting to measure up in Jake’s eyes, I sped ahead of him easily and he seemed to deflate and then gave up completely as I zipped by him.

      Each time we had a contest of sorts, I felt the distance between us widen and stupidly I did not know why. I finally learned why when on a final occasion, Jake and my brother James were wrestling good-naturedly in the kitchen. Both were laughing as they struggled. James was giving Jake a run for his money, but Jake was still dominating the event and happily doing it.

      Despite my budding manhood, despite the sprinkling of facial and chest hair, and my muscular one hundred and forty pounds; at that moment, I was once again six years old and filled with childish desire to play with my father or a fraternal figure. I was a child that wanted to play and to please. Without thinking I rushed in to playfully assists my brother. As soon as I grabbed Jake, he snarled and cursed viciously for me to back off.

      Standing there dumbfounded and hurt to the marrow, my newly whiskered upper-lip started to quiver like the six year old I had momentarily reverted too.

I was on the verge of bawling as such.

      My mother had been in the kitchen preparing food for supper when she witnessed what had happened. Feeling my hurt in a way that only a mother can with her little boy, she rushed over to pull me aside into another room as Jake and my brother happily resumed their tussling.

      Mom looked at me with deeply emphatic eyes as I struggled to maintain a stoic and manly exterior.

      She said, “Honey, don’t let what Jake said bother you.”

      Reacting without waiting to hear more and once again on the verge of tears

I whined only as a six year old can, “I just wanted to have fun and wrestle with them.”

      “I know Sug, but Jake is afraid that you are stronger than him, and I would never tell him, but the truth is you are and it hurts his pride that you are.”

      It was then that I realized that I had unwittingly helped to create the rift between us and sadly I somehow knew that there would be no repairing it.

      It was years later that my mother and even much later my brother, one of Jake’s children had recounted to me that just like me… Jake had a father that shamed him from the earliest age till he joined the Marines -- for needing glasses, for being sickly, small, weak, and unathletic. His father was ashamed that his oldest boy had not turned out to be the he-man that he in truth was.

      Jake, like me, as I had been before I reached puberty, had also been compared unfavorably with his younger brother who happened to be very husky, strong and robust.

      Knowing all of this helps me to understand why, but still has me lamenting for what I wished could have been. But instead, the tone between us at best -- for the rest of our lives has been mutual respect and discomfort and emotional insulation and distance. I wish it had been different.

      I must digress a bit and mention that this rift between men, especially men related to each other does not just occur when one has issues and demonic insecurities of the past that we are constantly trying to repair.

      I have found that even when you best a person in a contest who does not suffer unduly from insecurities – there can be problems. For instance it does not matter what the contest is, be it physical, mental or what have you.

      For example, Jake’s brother who is robust and very strong, decided to make a grab for me in front of his girl friend while we were all frolicking in the swimming pool. I was fifteen and one hundred and forty-five pounds and he was at the age of twenty-two a very muscular one hundred and ninety-some pounds.

      Because of my early imprinting and underlying insecurity about not being good enough; I did what my reactive protocol required of me and I went all out and turned the tables on his move and held him helplessly in a full-nelson until, like his brother before him, he too snarled and cussed at me to let him go. Although, Reggie had never suffered the humiliation of defeat prior to our tussle, he was red faced with shame as his girl friend looked on with amazement at my startling strength.

      I have often pondered how odd it was for people that easily suffered humiliation when bested seemed to be the most ready and pleased to best another even to the point of forcing a contest on their opponents.

      These facts have plagued me my whole life.

      People seem to only respect and admire strength, intelligence and competence in any arena; they crave these traits for themselves. On the flip side of the coin many of these same people despise weakness, dullness of wit, and incompetence of any sort.

      Yet, if these same people are confronted with the fact that another person is smarter, stronger or more competent, then jealousy often sets in.

All my life, many people have evaluated me in on extreme or the other in both mental and physical arenas. Depending, on the persons perception I have been considered a genius or a dullard, or the most gifted physically or the most incompetent.

      Society offers rewards or punishment and sometimes either is offered for each extreme.

I have struggled to learn how to walk the edge that will inspire people to leave me alone, or realize I was competent enough for their respect, but not engender fear or jealousy.

      Often this task will prove to be toughest the closer a person is to you.

I have wondered, what is the correct formula?