I have something that I should probably never admit to anyone, let alone all y'all. But here goes...
Among the many, many other things that I have to do, I also have to write. It is no longer a want. It is a need. I have something to say. So many things to say.
If you're waiting around for me to do something extravagantly entertaining, just wait longer. I have no idea how long it's going to take to finish some of these projects! Sometimes, this need to create is overwhelming, I have to write it down now so that I don't forget! And, it is always very exciting. I'm telling a story that no one's ever told before.
Aren't we all?
I have also been devouring as many books as I possibly can in my free time. That is how I want to spend a huge chunk of my time when the weather is cold and not conducive to skateboarding. I also have so many art projects going on that I never lack something that I could be doing on that front. Some of the things that I need to do require me to open the windows, and so I wait for nicer weather to work on things that need so many layers of paint and clear coat. Some things take extra space and needlepoint precision to detail--in other words, lots of time.
But I didn't come here to tell you that I've been writing a bunch of stuff that you might never get to read. I came here to say, among other things, that I well and truly hate Facebook. I wish it weren't so. I keep it because it holds a lot of memories from the life that I had before. That's also why I hate it. I can look back through all the pictures and posts and trace the timeline back through the past, and it dredges up all the feelings that I had when I posted them. Some memories are priceless and, of course, cherished, while others are a grim reminder of what things were like behind the scenes at home during that time. Maybe that's the work that I need to do, though. Maybe that's why things are so difficult. I still have to be able to face these things and not be angry and resentful all over again.
I don't like to talk about it here. I don't like to talk about it at all here, not only because I didn't want to somehow make things worse for myself, but also because this is a sacred place for me. It's my space. I have made it safe here, on this page, to share my feelings. As much as things have changed, some things, some people, will always be stuck in the past, slogging through the ruts of a muddy track that they cannot even conceive escaping. Am I also stuck in my own worn path? Has the yellow wallpaper been worn down by my incessant scraping along these walls?
I was once in the position where the only time I felt that I could really speak aloud on the telephone freely to a friend or family member was when I could escape to the grocery store, mall, outside for a long walk, or wandering the back yard, flitting from the roses to the tulips and back again, much like the bees. I was only allowed to call my one friend or my close relatives without it being a huge argument. Allowed is a funny word for it. It wasn't exactly explicitly stated outright, but the pattern of behavior over time revealed the unspoken rules. From the beginning, it was made known that I wasn't allowed to have friends who were boys. Talking to anyone who had a penis meant a huge argument, and one of the first scary fights had been because of this, and the look in his eyes that night has never left me. There's a hollow, unfocused look to the eyes, a tunneling darkness in the pupils that makes your heart race when you realize that the person that you were talking to, trying to reason with, isn't really there anymore. I had always read in books, the gripping thrillers that described that look in someone's eyes that they referred to as crazed, but I had never seen it for myself until that night. I would never forget it. I would come to know it well, and to expect the worst when I saw it.
I eventually just gave up on maintaining any relationships with other friends. I had to show my phone to him when I got home from class. Heaven forbid American Express call me during class and I return the call straight away afterward; I got grilled when I got home when he didn't recognize the numbers on my call log. Somehow it was not okay for me to explain that the 800 number was not some guy I was cheating with while our kid was at daycare and I was in astronomy class. He had to call AmEx to see for himself. On top of those unnecessary stresses, I had to show receipts for all of the things that I bought. I got questioned about what was on the receipt--what was this item, why did you need it? Despite being given a weekly "allowance," I was not privy to the finances and had to make the three hundred dollars pay all the bills and buy the necessities. It was made clear to me that the rest of the money was none of my business because I hadn't worked twelve hours a day to earn it like he did. I had to make sure to wake him on time for work and be sure that all his clothes and food were ready to go for him. When he would come home he would wake the kids for school and then disappear to go "grocery shopping" sometimes for hours and hours, only to return home sometimes with nothing, telling me embarrassing stories like he had fallen asleep in the restroom at the grocery store. I guess only one person ever really knew where he was going and what he was doing all those hours and sometimes days in a row when he disappeared. One of the worst times was when he left me pregnant, with a toddler, no money, all the bills due, including rent, and disappeared for entire weekends at a time with no communication while I used my credit card to buy food for us, pay the rent, and pay the bills. I didn't even have a paying job. I was a full-time student about to finish my undergraduate degree while being pregnant and raising a toddler. I remember eating a lot of rice and vegetables and watching Monsters Inc. on an endless loop in those days. We would soon move to a nice, big house, where he would tell me that he could either pay for me to live there or he could continue to make the payments on my credit card. He told me to choose.
I didn't always understand what she was trying to do but Mom was always trying to help me. She gave me a book titled, "Why Did I Ever?" when I first got married to him and moved off to go to college anyway. I was too hurt and upset by everything that had happened since we eloped that I didn't read the book, I put it away. I have carried it with me to every place that I have lived since, with my most prized books. The year we bought the house, Mom had tried to get me to take a semester in Miami, where I had originally planned to go to school, over the summer. I wish I had listened to my Mother more than I did. I wish I had understood what she was trying to teach me when she told me things that I didn't quite understand at the time. It was unfortunate that she had to die in order for me to come to understand that life is too short to be terribly unhappy with your choices the whole time. It's a good thing that you can always make different choices.
It makes me so angry looking back on it now. It turns out, even though I don't even know (or want to know) the extent of it, people often accuse others of the very things that they do themselves. Where was he all the time when he left for hours and days on end? Where was all the money even though he made such a good living? Was I really so very naive that I couldn't see the truth right in front of my own fucking face? Even when I picked up the phone in the middle of the night, crying infant in my arms, to hear another woman's voice on the line? Or when I found him with his arm around yet another woman, (maybe the same?) after I had met his ex to pick up his son, who was waiting in the car with his baby sister? I had always thought that I would find someone and have a great love and a happy family like my Mom and Dad were so lucky to have together. Now I know that I will always have that, with my family, but never with him, and never with anyone who would treat me and our children that way.
Thank god we didn't have the technological advances that we do today. At least, they weren't as easily accessible to the average rube back in the day. Now any idiot with an iPhone, AirTag, Life360, or similar app, can stalk you with ease. I hadn't really had to worry a lot about that sort of thing after his life completely imploded and he went to jail. In a big city there's a certain amount of anonymity. At least there, I had so many people around that didn't know me, my family, or him and his. Unfortunately it's a lot easier to stalk someone when you're in a small town, I guess. I thought that moving back here would help me. Help the kids. Let me be close to more of my family members. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when he decided to use today's new technology to turn that controlling behavior toward our children, but that's exactly what happened. The whole reason I left him was to show them that they didn't have to be treated like that, that there are different choices to be made in life, and sometimes those choices are the toughest to make. And now he just does the same manipulative, controlling, stalker bullshit to his own flesh and blood.
What do I think about it now? I think that I am geographically too close to the person who I divorced. There's not a lot I can do about that except be aware. I think that the dream that I had the other night--the one that I am reluctant to call a nightmare--was a turning point. In the dream, I was dropped into the middle of a foot chase. I was running from him and I knew that if he caught me, he would kill me with his bare hands. I was running up a hill toward a house that was dark and unfinished, maybe being demolished. I ran around the outside of it in the tall grass, then up onto the porch. But, in the dream, as I'm running, circling to the front of the house on the porch, I realize that I'm not actually afraid to die. That I don't want to be afraid of him anymore. I certainly don't want to die at the hands of this monster, but I'm not afraid of it any longer. And so, in my dream, I stopped running and turned to face my attacker. His hands were coming up to hit or choke me as he got closer, but then, as I turned to make my stand, fists up for a fight, and began to verbally insist that I was not afraid and that I would fight back, he stopped moving forward. His face changed and his hands dropped as I told him that I would fight back, to the death, if necessary, but that I would no longer let him hurt someone I love. Not me and not anyone else. And then I woke up.
Now, as I am writing this, I realize that what I meant when I told him that I wasn't afraid of him, afraid to die, afraid to fight back even if I died because of it, is that I'm really not afraid to fight back anymore. I will fight my personal emotional battles every day, like always, but I suspect that I am preparing for a different fight. There was a time in which I would just cower because my survival had to be ensured, especially since there were three other little people in the world who depended on me for their own survival. But now? Now I have to show them that it's more than okay to stand up for what you believe. So the lesson must be that I should not be afraid of whatever consequences that I may face by fighting for my own life or the lives of others.
Which brings me to the nazis.
GOD, I'M SO FUCKING MAD!!!!!
Didn't we warn you? Didn't we say, the fascists are unmasking and they are unafraid? LOOK AT WHAT IS HAPPENING AROUND YOU!!!! Speak up!! Call out those racist motherfuckers to their faces!!! Call out the bigots!! Call out the billionaires!! Don't cower!! Don't be afraid to say, "hey, that's fucked up and you should stop!!" when you witness injustice with your own eyes and ears!
I only say any of this because I am afraid that it might come down to physically fighting a bunch of fucking nazis. And I will. My grandfather and his brothers did. It's in our blood. We fight fascism. Every day. All day.
What about all the kids who are crying themselves to sleep at night worrying about whether ICE agents are coming for their families....in our own very community!!! What will our community members say or do when even more fascist shit happens here? What will you do?? Will you conform just so you don't get into trouble yourself?
I won't. I will never accept that we have to live with widespread fascism.
What must we do to be free of such oppression!?!?!?
What shall we do together???
