Invisible Bruises
Domestic Violence doesn't need to be silent, here is my story.
Wednesday 7 May 2014
It's been a blast. Introducing Bruises & Buttermilk
Tuesday 28 January 2014
Be a Man- The Crisis of Masculinity
And Finally one heck of a response to "Man Up"
Monday 16 December 2013
November 25, 2012
There was knocking-- my heart pounded with each tap at my door. Police I thought. Images of my husband in handcuffs darted through my head.
I covered my half naked body with a blanket. My clothes had been torn off hours before; his hand had grasped around the collar of my shirt as I tried to get away, tearing it clean off my body. I was thankful it wasn't my hair. Eventually it would be that too.
My pants came off as he dragged me backwards towards the bedroom by the leg of my pajamas. Later he would use them to shove into my face. Nearly suffocating me; the smell of that laundry detergent still prompts flashbacks.
The knocking continued. Four or five more times. He answered.
I lied there wearing some scraps of clothing and fresh, swollen bruises. Hand prints stained my skin--it looked like dye. Fake.
I heard my mother. "Where is she" she entered without needing a response. I pulled my cover tighter around me. The light wisp of the blanket against my skin stung.
I saw K. Parka and boots were all I seem to remember now. My head spun and buzzed and I realized how disoriented I was. Before this moment it felt like a wild dream. My imagination. But here I was.
As I sat upright my knee shot with pain. Tight like an elastic stretched too far.
I remember little. A last scared glance at his face. He was scared too. Grabbing my blue bag. The one I kept for emergencies. K hugging me as she put me in the front seat of her Pontiac. The ice. The bandaids. The cover up...
Thursday 12 December 2013
Last thing I'd say
Thursday 5 December 2013
Reflecting, a year later.
Monday 11 November 2013
Thank-you Best Friend P
It was you who taught me that packing my feelings into little orange boxes and sliding them back to my subconscious was not dealing with my hurt, or a way of moving on from it. It was to you that I shared my first tears after I left.
It was you who taught me that no matter how damaged I felt, I could be loved. I was loved.
We did Iceland, this might be one of the most important string of moments in my life. You stayed up for hours through 4am texts; when I couldn't sleep you wouldn't either.
My world feels lighter, happier and brighter with you in it, and I never want to know a moment without you again. You're my Rock Best Friend P, my partner in crime. And one Heck of a Bestie.
Monday 4 November 2013
Iceland
On what my life is now. How I handle freedom without being careless. How I protect myself without caging my heart away forever. How I find Balance.
I mentioned a post or two ago that I was planing a trip, a trip I had been planning for years. 5 years to be exact.
Well, I took that trip. It was in Iceland that I finally found my center. Sneaking away for mere moments from my travel companion I sat on the shoreline of a glacial lake alone. The water a pristine reflection of the sky.
Ten thousand year old ice floated past me and seals played in the distance, uninterrupted by the presence of people. A few other tourists whisked past me, tripods out or the crunching of their boots in the distance, the disturbances faded the longer I sat there. If it weren't for Best Friend Pete at the top of the hill I may have stayed there all day.
What brought me total clarity as I took in the crisp Arctic air. The realization that all those days I dreamed about this place, Imagined this moment. When it was all I wanted. The moments when I thought "if I ever get to go...". Every play of the Icelandic tourism DVD, even though my husband told me it was stupid. Those moments were not for nothing.
You see Iceland embodied every dream I had. It was the last one standing; the last thing I held on to. It was the only thing I thought about some days before I fell asleep from exhaustion after I ran out of tears.
It was the only place I ever felt that I NEEDED to go.
And right there at that moment it was real. Not only was it real so was everything in the last year. I sacrificed everything I had ever known for something that was better and exactly then, sitting on the pebbles at the shore of this amazing place I realized that moving past all of this hurt is going to bring me extraordinary things.
Iceland is just the beginning.