And I Blew Take 1...

A year ago today I was sitting in my condo, legs crossed on the floor. A year and a half of work lay in front of me. I sorted through invoices, checking my account balance after studying each one. I checked off lists and crossed off points. Text the girls to ensure all plans were inline.

A Year ago I sat in a home I thought I would share with a man forever. My wedding dress was hanging in the closest, the loveliest thing I had ever owned. I had a count down going on FB, everything was ready.

What the heck was I thinking? I can see you know, yelping at your monitor like a wild woman. How on earth could you marry a man who hit you?

Yea, I know.

In the happiest of moments he was not that man. He  was my true love. That's what I believed anyways.

The last couple days have been rough, really rough. I look back often as the date that would be my first anniversary. The anniversary we promised we would return to Costa Rica where we honeymooned. It would mark the first in many years together.

Instead I am sitting in a Starbucks Grande Green Tea Lemonade beside me as I sit hunched over Pouring my feelings out. Trying not to cry.

It's been six months of healing, and although the notion that my marriage failed hurts like bare feet on hot concrete- a lot of hot concrete. What troubles me the most is the thought that I used my shot. My chance to wear a white dress and walk down an aisle on my daddy's arm, my shot at planning and laughing and fighting through the process. I missed my chance to say that I married the (true)  love of my life.

I was never one for marriage, I probably would have been fine without it. I could have been happy without it.  But now that that shot is gone, I wish I had never cashed it in.

I know I wont be alone forever, I hope anyways. I know one day I will find that man who makes me happy without making a mark. I know I will one day get that happily ever after. And I know this person will love me with or without a ring.

I just cant help but wonder what my life would have been like without the divorce handstamp.

Learning to Forgive, and Move on

Trust has always been easy for me. You wouldn't suspect that. 

I believe that people are inherently good, that there is a fine layer that separates what makes us bad people and the good we are all made from.
I have always believed that if you focus on understanding the person, forgiving faults and believing that individuals are good, that they will be.

Here I am almost 6 months after finally having to give up believing that my Husband would stop hitting me. How do I feel?

My position hasn't changed. 

I still believe that people are good. We are not born or created bad. I don't believe that there is anything inside of any one of us that is preventing us from being a kind, or decent human being.

Growing up I was taught to be compassionate...

Even to those who did not show me kindness. I was taught that when a bully was mean to you it maybe was because someone bullied them. I was taught that when people where angry or upset or mean, you understand that that behaviour is wrong. 

Then, you forgive them...

Forgiving does not make what you went through right, or make negative actions or situations okay. By doing this you expel hatred or upset or disdain from your mind.  You release yourself from the situation, it allows you to continue to grow and move on.

Perhaps, even transcend into understanding....

Wish the person well. Wish that somehow they find their way and rediscover the natural good within them.

And eventually learn to trust...

Even though you might be ready to trust, you must learn balance Trust with wisdom. You can mend a wound, but would you put yourself back in harms way again?

Forgive yourself...
You will make mistakes too. Marry people you shouldn't, try too hard, eat too much desserts, buy expensive jeans. It's okay.

Does any of this mean you go back? No. Is what I went through okay? Not even a little.
But somewhere in my heart can I forgive my Husband for what he did to me and leave him in a distant memory? This I will need to do. One day.

Reflection

At the end of yoga practice you meditate. 10 minutes of peaceful reflection.
I cry every time.

No matter how good my week has gone or what I've accomplished my mind wanders to him. It is like a shadow you don't notice until you are alone, until you are vulnerable.  When it doesn't matter how reasonable or rational or tough you are. It is the shadow that always manages to get inside your head and terrify you.

Today my mind wandered, I thought about how my husband felt the day I left. What happened the moments after the door to my condo shut. What happened to him as Kay and my mother loaded me into the Pontiac. Did he cry? Did he get up and clean the broken glass from the floor. Wash the spit and blood from the 800 thread count cotton sheets. Did he have a cigarette and absorb what has unfolded.

My head ran through a thousand different scenarios each one of them amplified my silent tears as I lay there on my mat. Each taking me back to last Tuesday.

Last week I spoke to him on the telephone, for the first time since Christmas. If you read the post from that morning you are already aware that it was not a conversation I would chose to have again.

When I hung up after 43 minutes and 28 seconds I was alternating between sobs and gasps, by chest hurt my head pounded. It was 4am and I couldn't call anyone, my texts went unanswered as I sat alone grasping at the teddy bear he had gotten me for my 17th birthday.

I was scared, the first time in five months I remembered what it was like to not have anything to hide myself in, no one to talk to. Suddenly, I was back in the world I lived for six years, alone.

I feel for him, I really do. He has lost more than I have. He has lost someone who took care of him, who loved him despite flaws, who tried to fix him, tried to help him. I understand what it feels like to be alone, I was there- a lot.

As the clock hit 5am I wished I could just slide my rings back on and go back to how it was, so all the hurt I was feeling would end. I can't, those rings should have never been on at all.

At 6am I wrote that post, I was hurting.

It took me a couple days of fighting to get back to where I am, it took some hard truths from my best friends and some good ol' fashioned hugs but I am back. I am back on my way to my new life. I know I will have lots of moments where I am flat on my back quietly crying during meditation-

I will be okay.

I'll Tell You About Edward

I would like to tell you about Edward. 

If you lived through the 90's you likely remember Puppy Surprise. When I was about 8 years old I received one for Christmas, She was a pink and white dog with a swollen Velcro sealed tummy, she had a litter of five. A fact that I was very proud of since the toy could also come with 3 or 4 pups. Of the five, one was named Edward.

One day our real puppy, a black lab decided that my toys resembled his and chewed Edward. His face mangled and twisted. His small rubber head opened to a smooth hollow mess.

He was broken A few times my mother suggested that we throw him out and she purchase me a new puppy (you could buy them independently  in case you needed 12 like I did.) Still every day I would play with him along side his brothers and sisters hoping eventually I would figure out a way to fix him, to make him whole. For years I held onto his mangled body, he was broken beyond repair but I held on. 

At one point I hot glued his face together, filling in the gaps with clear plastic mess that ran down his face and enhanced the franken-puppy look. 

Eventually I grew older and the Puppy Surprise made their way back into the closet with the My Little Pony and Cabbage Patch Dolls.I didn't think about them for years.

 Ironically I found Edward as I was moving out of my Condo a couple months ago. His tiny rubber face mended, as meticulously as a 12 year old with a glue gun could. His bean bag body stained, beaded fabric from 18 years of existence. 

You know what I did with Edward? I put him back in the bin with his brothers and sisters, now a reminder of who I am. You see, I did this again, 14 years after Edwards mangled face graced my toy box. I kept a relationship, a mangled, disfigured, irreparable relationship with a person I couldn't hot glue gun back together.  I hoped that one day, some how I would figure out how to fasten him back together, make him whole and not have to say goodbye.

How will I even Make it Through Today.

I've had bad days. This is a very bad day.

I woke up 15 minutes ago and looked at my swollen puffy eyes, my raw nose and messy hair. I look like shit. Today all I want more than anything is to walk into my office this way. Broken. To not have to hide it.

I Know I can't, I know I will finish this short post. shower, apply make-up, do my hair in a neat little bun at the nap of my neck, dress myself better than usual and head out the door. Pretending that my life is together. If you feel like shit, look like a million bucks.

Whether you have been crying relentlessly all night, wondering how you will make it through client presentations and status calls and dreaming about buying a plane ticket and learning what a true and complete fresh start is. Even if I don't have the guts to try.

Crazy Love+ Breaking the Silence.

When people know you have been through something they try to understand, they absorb information and share it with you, hoping it will help. In the time since I have shared my story I have received emails, texts and had laptops and tablets with content about domestic violence shoved in my face. I haven't really appreciated it until Best Friend P shared something with me yesterday.

This is Leslie Morgan Steiner. During her Ted Talk on domestic violence.

I will let you watch the video, but this is the most comprehensive and deeply truthful view of the domestic violence I have seen. A story that mirrored mine in ways that I have been thinking about over that last 24 hours. I have repeated this Ted Talk over and over again, studying her words, hearing my own thoughts echoing. It plays on the background of my laptop as I write you this letter.

I have bought Crazy Love and as I flip through the pages I am sure I will share what I find in those words.  On that note, Leslie brings up something in the closing remarks of her video. Abuse affects anyone, everyone, there are likely people within our circles who are battling this fight silently, Leslie states "abuse thrives only in science." this sentiment is wholly and completely true.

It was not until the words "he hits me" left my lips that I was able to leave, without sharing that with my friends, my mother only days before the last attack I am certain I would have soon after November 25th been applying another layer of cover up to new bruises, likely over top the ones that had yet to heal.

Telling them is what saved my life.

This sentiment also struck me for another reason, 1/3 American women or men have or are dealing with violence in a relationship. Somewhere in my circle of friends, someone is going through this hell.

Thus far I have been quiet silent about my ordeal, about what I went through. Select friends know, I write this blog under a pseudonym.

My own silence, even after surviving. My Voice and my story could be helping someone. Someone I love.

So my promise to myself, I will talk about it. I am not weak for experiencing it, I am strong for surviving it. I will share what I went through, with my family, my friends and this blog. Maybe one day someone will use what people like Leslie and myself went through to rewrite the next chapter in their lives and stop their domestic violence story.

On my Way Out of the Storm.

It is easy to be confused when the earth shifts.
It is easy to be scared.

It is easy to lose focus or to focus on the wrong things. To let your priorities fall through the cracks that have appeared. Four months after my world ruptured this is what I am facing. I am facing the challenge of rediscovering my life as it now exists. I am facing my old friends, many of who don't know the whole story. I am slowly looping people back into my world, sharing what I have been through, explaining not making excuses for my absence.

For the first little while my life was a party, I drank and I hid and I tried to forget that my old life had existed at all. I worked until the office was dark, sometimes I would sit there and stare out the window dreading the thought of again going to sleep on my mother's couch.

Drinking wore off, the hangovers mixed with the sleep deprivation and long hours began to wear on me. Slowly I became more and more depressed. I felt fifteen, I felt lost, I felt broken and empty and alone.

I would alternate the friends I would talk to on bad days so they would think I was doing better than I was. I didn't want to see their faces, I reminded me of that old life, the old life I wish would have washed from my memories with one of the blows to the head.

Four months later it is better, much better than before. Not quite okay. I've spent hours curled up on my friends bed as he hugged me until I ran out of tears, as I talked or cried. I've had days where  memories will flash and I will lose my mind in the back of a bus, or in the washroom at a bar. I've had moments where I smile more than I think I could. Finally I am starting to feel whole. I have begun to mend friendships neglected and give back to the people who have helped me. Though I know I am a while away from perfect, I am out of the storm a little more each day.