Anniversary

Today is the day. A year ago is when I left in the middle of the night. I have mixed feelings that depend if it is dark or light outside.

At night, with this cold snap, my body remembers what my mind has not dwelt upon. I shudder to remember his spit hitting my skin. I hear his voice with those terrible words condemning me, hating me. My head spins to catch movement out of the corner of my eye, involuntarily afraid. It takes deliberateness to continue walking forward through the night, reminding myself that I left in enough time. That we are safe. That we are free. That life is better. Once I’m inside, I sigh and thank God for wholeness, healing, and recovery.

In the day, I turn my face up to the white sunshine and smile. The days are golden; there’s a bounce in my step. My children laugh and our days Know Joy. I’m in love and my skin remembers being kissed in places that had never known another’s lips, so soft, like a prayer. It’s amazing that parts of me were virginal even after a long marriage: that’s what happens when one man refused to touch and another embraces the entirety. I frequently sigh in contentment, feeling a glow radiate from deep within me.

So many corners of life redeemed.

The acknowledgment of a year’s passing will not be anything notably significant. We will trick-or-treat and carve pumpkins. We will laugh. We will eat and share with neighbors. Children will run off their sugar-highs in cool grass under starlight and sleep in peace. I will probably make long love to that miracle of a man and awaken to fresh coffee and a hot breakfast. My parents will relax. It will be what we never had: Normal. That is more profound than a thousand sentimental ceremonies could ever be. Quietly I will add a bead to the chain I’ve been building, the moon count, the notches of healing that I’ve traced.

It feels like relief, a long walk through open space and fields, arms raised and face smiling, unafraid. I feel a small urge to dance in bare feet.

Dear Blue House,

Here’s what I know to be true: when one has buried their child there is never again any loss that is consuming. The knowledge that loss is survivable reigns and lends a certain amount of perspective. That said, I really tried not to let you go. You are a house with more history than I. An old place that I cleaned and cared for and painted. A  lawn I mowed, a garden I grew. For a long time this year you were tangible hope because I left you and everything in you in the dead of night and you were still there.  I was almost shot trying to bring my children back to you. I left and you were abandoned and you stood as a wooden monument in the valley that some things lasted longer than circumstance. As long as you nestled there, I felt hope that I’d get you back, that I’d get some part of myself back. Maybe I’d still have a chance to live where I could breathe the best and savor the seasons and have my own home. And then it was granted and you became tangible redemption. What had been locked was now open. I rocked on the porch and breathed prayers of gratitude for the soft wood beneath my feet and the smell of my flowers blooming. Returned To Me, you were. But it was only partial.

The thing is with brutes like him, the kind that pushes their wives down the stairs and follows her around with a stick of firewood in his hands; the kind that turns the yard into a graveyard of animals except for the one he left out to rot and the kind that Prays After Beating also knows how to push in the passive sense. He decided no one would get you and so it will be. Twelve months later I’m broken from trying and can’t keep it on and so he will have his way one more time. You will sit amid long grasses. Your windows will stay cold and ghosts will grow. Someday maybe an auction will be had and your history will continue, because you will last longer than this circumstance.

I hope it will be a family that will love you. Maybe they will finish the project I left undone. Maybe they will have a Christmas tree and hang a porch swing. Old Alice could come by and tell tales of her childhood there. And maybe someday I’ll have another house again as well. My things are still floating; they will leave you and find new temporary places, like me. My mother says, “this came to pass not to stay”. I want something to stay. It would be nice to have something as permanent as you, Old Blue House; some nest in the valley with home lights.

I have held you loosely and now will let you go. Soon the tears won’t come quite so quick and I’ll move on; that’s the way of life. Thank you for your gracious hospitality.

The Modern American Dead Beat Dad

He breaks my stereotype.

He was a homeschooling father, a bookish type who threw the football in the yard and made cheesy eggs. That was on good days. On bad days he beat them for not getting their math problems right and berated me for not breathing right. We were never puritan enough for him.

But still…I am constantly amazed at how surprised I get when he fails to show up.

It was a fucked up year you know? Suicide attempts and police involvement and going into hiding and psycological evaluations. No contact for 8 months with his children and then only supervised. Very little child support, checks that bounce, and spotty appearance at that. And now phone calls that he fights vehemently to have and then fails to show up for, emails full of historical yammering and argument bait. He put so much effort into sounding right, into protecting his rights, into whatever ideal he thinks the world should support for him. And then, when an inch is granted, he backs completely away by a mile.

He’s brooding again and escalating. He’s goes on at length about what an excellent father he is and how he will soon be able to have daily involvement again. It’s a land of his own creation, this place where he spends his time; so far from reality it’s laughable sometimes only it’s not that funny. Our guard is back up, safety plans in place, because this is never a good sign.

Yesterday I high-tailed it to an unplanned therapy session. I needed some perspective on the barraging emails he’s been sending. It’s so freeing to hear, “refuse to read it. Scan it quickly and return it unread, with a statement that you need a succinct request”. It’s a good boundary to have. But it’s also the kind that infuriates him. I see how little he has moved on, how he is trying to “level”, how insecure he is. So pathetic.

I hate seeing this process play out on my children’s faces. One child has intestinal stress any time he has to speak to him. Another gets angry, the other aloof. And the baby gets hyper and says he misses Daddy over and over again.

It’s been good that I never fight with him anymore; he gets only the plainest replies specifying dates and times from me. For someone looking to interact over anything it must be frustrating. But my life is full and vibrant these days; I finished fighting him a long time ago. It’s not tempting to argue with him. It is, however, still very stressful knowing where he is in his cycle and knowing my kids are still vulnerable to it.

I wish there was an end in sight.

The Power of A Question

Sunday was the day wherein my ex-husband (and oh the joy I feel at being able to call him that!) asked me the first question about the kids in at least a year, if not longer.

The impetus went like this: they had a supervised visit with him a week before that went well because they didn’t have to travel far, weren’t disrupted from their routine, and he behaved. I’d sent an email encouraging that he choose that same time slot next time because they’d done so much better (and had a shorter recovery time) and he asked, “How did they do better? Explain.”

And so I sat and looked at my screen for a few moments taking it in. Of course, there is that command attached to the end…but I ignored it. He has not asked me, the custodial parent and these babies’ mother, a direct question about how or what they are doing in any kind of recent memory. I chose not to analyze and just answer. It went like this:

The ways they did better: the visit didn’t disrupt anything they had going or wanted to attend so they seemed more focused on your visit and enjoying seeing you. They had an easier time afterward (no physical symptoms because snack choices are better, not as much violence and anger, not as much confusion). They seemed to be more settled into this as a routine and bounced back to their normal, daily routine much easier, which was a big deal this time since school was the next day. Usually it takes them a day or two of major emotional upset to get back to normal and I have to clear the scheduling space to allow for that. This time, without major travel and fitting into a Sunday afternoon after church, was much, much easier on them.

If we try to schedule for a Saturday, they will have to miss much of the activities they’d like to be a part of and commit to and those activities are helping them quite a bit. It would only increase resentment. If you can manage Sunday afternoons, it seems to be a very good time slot for the kids.

And then I tacked on, “Thank you for asking. I appreciate it.”

What followed was a long, rambling, punctuation-less response on what a loving, excellent father he is, coupled with pleas and begging for me to stop restricting his access to them. He implied we should live nearby so he can see them every day and said he wants to have normal contact with them.

Then he said he can’t come see them twice a month. He ignored the reminder that email and phone contact are available. And he’s conveniently withholding child support for many months running.

This afternoon I sat thinking and remembering about why I live so far away now. Why I’m back in Hurricane-land trying to figure out how to finance a house I love in a state I can’t reside in, with four glorious seasons and herbs I lovingly planted and walls I painted. I wonder if he remembers that we don’t live there because last year he shot 23 of our animals and threatened to kill me with a chunk of firewood and then told the neighbors I was armed, dangerous, and trespassing on his property, meaning I was almost shot by the police when trying to go home.  I wonder at the level of his denial and how he could consider any close relationship with him, “normal”.

His begging falls on the deafest of ears. It will take a helluva court fight to make me put my children in his unsupervised vicinity ever again.

Lately I’ve been spending my time with a real, live, grown-up of the romantic kind. The sort of man who shows up. Who pays. Who thinks ahead. Who owns his crap and strengths combined. Who has raised three impressive kids to adulthood. Who sentimentally saves baby shoes and pictures of their high chairs and the first fish they caught. And, to my marvelous enjoyment…..who asks questions.

So I’ve been thinking about questions and how the unloaded asking of them communicates respect and honor. And maybe questions, the honest and curious kind, are the first clue we have into someone’s character. Their presence or not, their frequency, their longevity. My ex-husband asked so few…didn’t even propose (it too was just sort of assumed, shame on me).

Questions are one of the first things I look for now.

I went to the city to live deliberately…

Interesting play on words because I tend to equate moments of spiritual rebirth with settings of nature, almost virginal lush beauty. Instead, I found myself walking on pavement, looking up at buildings rather than trees, finding sunshine peek around city blocks, and in the middle of it all, having a hole in my soul sewed up. My Walden was New York City and in the midst, I refound my “happy”.

It’s private, so I won’t try to put into words the process of it’s reappearance. Besides, it was nothing so definite. The subtleties could have easily been dismissed or pushed aside but I knew I was open. I was purposeful in unlocking the door to let it in. I intentionally challenged fear after fear and stepped ahead…flying, speaking to strangers, looking at street people in the eye, and smiling for no apparent reason.

The result was walking on golden air, finding joy in the small things again, feeling exuberance over human connection of the smallest kind. I felt beautiful, felt loved by myself, felt I had something to offer and share.

Today I was listening to Alanis Morrisette’s music…she tends to articulate well my own emotional process, be it anger, grief, gratitude, introspection, justice. I feel a kindredness in her sharing, I stumbled over an older song of hers, “Thank You” and watched the video. The song challenges the idea that struggle makes us weak, blows gentle suggestion over it making us stronger and healthier. But I newly noticed two things about it today: the nudity in the video and the city setting.

I think the nudity is essential…the bareness, the vulnerability, the being stripped of any pretense or excuse. And that the birthing could happen in a city, full of noise and bustle and activity, touched the freshness of my own experience.

Last year I had a reoccurring dream that I’ve since painted. I dreamed it often for months and months before I left my marriage and the danger we were in. I left when I had nothing left I was afraid to lose save my children and my life. I knew in leaving it would all be gone…house, church, community, a whole known life. I was stripped bare of anything between death and life. I was starved, gaunt even, and yet responsible for the sustenance of those little lives. We walked through wilderness towards light we weren’t sure existed.

I call the painting, “The Leaving”. I don’t generally share my art work because I tend to not feel it’s meant for public consumption but rather for my own cathartic process. The only music I’ve ever heard that really captures what that dream was to me is this song by Alanis, because it gets it all…the pain, the hunger, the journey, the bottom, the salvation, the climb. I think the two of them will be linked in my mind always now and it seems right to post them together. And if I may, my apologies dear Alanis; your songs have stepped with me on my journey right from the first. You say it much better than I.

Here are the lyrics to the song:

How bout getting off of these antibiotics
How bout stopping eating when I’m full up
How bout them transparent dangling carrots
How bout that ever elusive kudo

Thank you India
Thank you terror
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you frailty
Thank you consequence
Thank you thank you silence

How bout me not blaming you for everything
How bout me enjoying the moment for once
How bout how good it feels to finally forgive you
How bout grieving it all one at a time

Thank you India
Thank you terror
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you frailty
Thank you consequence
Thank you thank you silence

The moment I let go of it was
The moment I got more than I could handle
The moment I jumped off of it was
The moment I touched down

How bout no longer being masochistic
How bout remembering your divinity
How bout unabashedly bawling your eyes out
How bout not equating death with stopping

Thank you India
Thank you providence
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you nothingness
Thank you clarity
Thank you thank you silence

Proverbs 30:25

Up there in the trees,

in that great canopy of Oaks shading everything,

flits a torn balloon,

some remembrance offering that didn’t make it to heaven.

That doesn’t happen over in the Jewish section,

where they lay small stones to mark

love and devotion and occasion,

instead of the floral kaleidescope of the gentiles.

The cleanness of that grief strikes me.

This many years and tears past,

I don’t grieve her in the garden her so much.

That happens at small, unexpected, breathy intersections

where the mundane collides with eternal.

You know…when folding laundry sorted

by child and pile and noticing the gap.

Or when driving and counting heads and

that feeling that never goes away that one is missing.

But the garden is just a place where it’s okay to cry.

About anything.

No looks. Just quiet respect and sometimes palpable despair

will cluster around the granite.

We never speak but we are bound

in the strangest of ways.

So I sat on the Thackerson Bench,

the groundmate’s family who paid more than I,

providing a slab to sit upon so

we’d both have a place to cry,

near the base of the tree,

near the names carved in bronze.

My water had started that morning,

not shutting off, not building.

Just a steady Stream Of Me leaving

through swollen eyes that can not see the way ahead.

I’d refused to get up until

He gave me some kind of word.

I wouldn’t say his name for the longest time;

I tried his mother first.

Then, my saint, who has become

a new mother of sorts to me as well.

But then his name came out for

the first time in at least a year.

The dam had broken I guess.

A desperation possessing no more strength.

The pool beneath was smooth,

calm even.

Breathe.

In the stillness my eyes,

those red and aching windows,

glimpsed the ants.

They’ve always crawled near her grave,

persistently keeping ivy from growing.

I’ve hated them.

But that day there they were,

hauling the dead moth between the blades

of grass and dead leaves from the oaks above me,

frantically.

And I could see that no ant wastes time feeling

guilt or gloom that they need help.

The job lays before and they unite,

driven, intent, red.

Those ants kept getting the moth caught

in a circle of grass. One, two, three tries.

More circles. Maybe some talk. They chewed.

Each broke a section away and

onward they moved. The large

having been made small enough for

one to carry. And the moth

was gone.

I dried my face.

Took a breath.

I can’t be a hero.

But I can be an ant.

Onward.

Hey women who’ve been through custody battles before….

I need your advice.

My ex is making accusations. I’m photographing the kids before each supervised visit, keeping up with reports from the supervisors, and being brief and matter-of-fact with him (not engaging in arguing).

What else do you recommend?

I was thinking of creating a PRIVATE blog site for the purpose of a journal/photo record of how things go. Can anyone think of a problem in doing that? The only viewers would be the doctor and my lawyer.  It would later serve as a body of evidence, should I need that defense.

Thoughts?

I’m sorry….did you think I was that pathetic?

Tuesday was my birthday. I had a BLISSFUL day…never in my life can I remember a day filled with such love, coming from so many directions.  It truly is a day I will cherish for years, maybe forever.

But an odd thing happened between the cupcake shops a friend was taking me to for various tastings. Mr. Flavor the Month called.

Mind you, this guy is the one who wanted to scale friendship back to acquainences. I haven’t heard from him at all in four months. Meaning, we aren’t *that* well acquainted! The call went like this:

Him: “Hi! Do you know who this is?”

Me: “Um…your voice sounds familiar…this is a little embarrassing…give me a clue.”

Him: “Well…I’m a TN friend.”

Me: (wracking my brain cuz he really did sound familiar but didn’t recognize the number but I felt like I ought to know) “Oh…I knew that from your area code. Really, I’m sorry I can’t tell! Just tell me!”

Him: “Well another hint is that we have Capital Coffee in common”.

Me: “OH! Mr-I’m-too-self-absorbed-to-be-your-friend”!

Okay, okay…I didn’t say that. I said his name. But my jaw was dropping to because I could not figure out why in the world he would be calling on THAT particular day.

Him: “Well, I wanted to wish you a happy birthday.”

Me: “That’s so sweet! How did you remember today was the day?”

Him: “For some reason, it was in my calendar. I decided that everyone deserves to be remembered on their birthday, even if no one else makes it happy for them.”

Ugh….yeah. I don’t get “speechless” often but that one just about did it. He obviously expected to find me morose and depressed, alone and pathetic, with no birthday celebration. The friend next to me was loudly urging me to come on in for the cupcake selections and I laughed.

Mr. Flavor ought not to have worried. His greeting ranked just below the automated card my dentist sends out.

40

ABout six weeks ago my lawyer told me to openly blog about domestic violence and my success story. I told him I wanted to wait until after the trial was over, in case anything I wrote was misconstrued. He said he didn’t think it was necessary to do that…that writing about this would be an important part of my survival story. It took me six weeks to think about that and to find the right words.

This morning I blogged the following article. I was careful to write it in a way that did not overstep my children’s current knowledge, from their own experience, of what our home situation was like. They too, need truth and validation in order to heal. Pretending that their dad is a “great guy” neither speaks to the truth they’ve lived nor explains why their mother would leave him. But the emphasis of my life is no longer that man…it’s on moving on, and that was the point of the article as well.

My lawyer wrote me today to say to take it off. That writing that would hurt my case and put me in danger of contempt of court charges for “disparaging” their father. That makes no sense to me….if he was awesome,  would I be getting a divorce? Is there anything here that the court, and our family, doesn’t already know?

Well, publicly, I still have a David-sized pillow over my voice. But not for forever. In 39 and 1/2 days wind will fill my lungs and my voice will be heard.  For now, there is always the anonymous whisper.

***************

My ark, my wilderness, my lent, my time for purification….40 days until the legal system catches up with the rest of life; for the spiritual change, the emotional transition, the physical distance have long been sealed. What has happened in reality long ago will finally be put to rest in man’s contrived system. I am surprised, in a way, that I’m not in a greater amount of grief over it….and then at the same time, not. Grief passes, loss has stages, and “what’s done is done” was done so very long ago. What matters through changes is getting one’s “head around it” and once that happens, the rest is almost a formality. That’s been true of any change I’ve made in my life, from the way I eat, to where I live, to becoming a parent….one way in the heart first, the body second. And too, when one is working as hard as I have been (single parenting while forced to travel, run a business, and work out major emotional trauma times 5 is hardly an easy feat) a “nose the grindstone” pragmatism must develop, just in order to survive.

This, without a doubt, has been a quest to live a deliberately authentic life with higher stakes than any other. No more shiny-happy images on the surface while suffering and abuse lie in the background. It took 13 long years to find a voice strong enough to say something was wrong and untenable but thanks be to God, I finally spoke up. It’s cost more than I could have imagined….but then, I think any step towards honesty will cost.

“The Truth Hurts” is what we toss around…but it has. Realizing the extent of denial is not a pretty process. Seeing the reality that remains after the props are removed is down right ugly. The thing of it is though…the truth is ultimately the truth…and on the other side of the ugly is healing and freedom.

And that is where victory really lies. Seeing children not in turmoil from constant stress but playing and laughing again. Welcoming the healing from stress-related illness. Seeing anger responses that don’t involve violence. Smiling again and enjoying a pretty day. Feeling hope, over many things, in the future. Not flinching when I spill something and retraining my inner voice to allow for imperfection (“Oh! I’m so human!” rather than, “Oh! I”m so stupid!”). Going longer than I have in years un-manipulated, un-spat upon, un-physically intimidated…all in the name of “love” and submission, has had an effect.

If marriage is an image of how Christ loves the church, it’s been good for my faith to tease that apart. I couldn’t really see it before, though I longed for it, that God really does love me. Me. I’m not hideous, unwanted, rejected, disgusting, or a failure. I am visible to God…not just half of a supposed whole, there just to do the work. Beyond my imperfection and sin, He sees someone who is lovely. In some ways, the eternal ways, that is all the freedom I need.

One aspect of the domestic abuse cycle is the mutual lack of self-worth. And that is exactly what starts to form when a break away is made. I can “hear” that God-so-loved-me-that-he-saved-me. He thought I was worth that.

It has reminded me of stewardship, a big ideal I hold….it’s what motivates my financial, environmental, and health goals. And I was a very poor steward of myself and my children in the previous decade. I let myself be thrown away, quite literally, and while I took steps in every other area towards health and the appreciation of worth and value, I failed at the first step every morning…that person in the mirror and those children down the hall. The old adage of “don’t let yourself be a doormat” is a true one. No one else will respect you if you don’t first respect yourself.

So for myself, and the women in my support group going through very similar journeys, that comes first. It is the first step out into the wilderness, on the path, toward honesty, health, and life. Knowing that our lives are worth fighting for and that our children need better. That even our abusers deserve better because salvation is for them too, and may they also find healing and redemption.

Respect, worth, honesty, healing, forgiveness…that’s the hard part. The legal signing of papers is so very easy in comparison. Very nearly just a chore needing to be done. I suppose it’s not unlike it’s reverse…that wedding, after the emotional process of courting, falling in love, and committing, is comparatively easy…more work for the caterer and seamstress than the bride and groom. When the hype falls away, the parsed truth is much less complex than one may think. I don’t know if I would have thought this before my mile in these shoes.

And so there are forty days left. Forty days for the word to catch up with the deed.

Oh and….

I started that countdown…..

43 days…..

until my Emmancipation, the abolition of my imprisonment, aka marriage to an abusive man, who wasn’t what he seemed in so many ways.

43 days until the truth really comes out.

43 days until what he’s done to me will not be allowed by law, just because we’re married, but will actually be a criminal offense.

43 days until we start getting answers to some major questions.

43 days….or rather, 42 1/2 .