Abuse: My Own Personal Voldemort

He didn't come in swinging, instead with vows and silky words. But those promises were pawns, the softness shards of glass. The bend, the break, the hurt wasn't in my bones, but in my soul. In my heart.

Abuse. It's such a lumbering, heavy word. I don't even like to say it out loud. It's my own personal Voldemort. He who must not be named. Because if I give it a name, I give it weight. I don't like to talk about it because I don't like to admit that it was real. That it happened to me. It was my reality for over ten years, and sometimes, even though it's over, it's not.

That's the worst part. He's gone, but he's not. (Don't mistake me. I'm beyond over him. He's nothing to me.) But he's still here inside my head, still taunting me. He gave me a box full of darkness, and sometimes it still eats me alive, blots out the sun. How do you exorcise a demon as slippery as a cuttlefish that sloshes ink into your veins every time you try to catch him? It's a daily thing, the shutting out of his vicious, cycling words.

So, I can't be afraid to talk about, scared to say the word abuse aloud. Because it happened, because it hurt, because I healed from it. It will always affect me. It's the reason for my self-doubt, for my anxiety, why I can't sleep through the night. That box of darkness is mine. I'm not afraid to own it. It was freedom and finding what was lost. It forced me to become the best version of myself. It was a gift.

The Bitter Pill

A bitter heart eats its owner. I feel like the bitterness is about to gobble me up whole. There will be nothing left but the anger and darkness. I've stayed positive for so long, but I'm tired. I'm afraid that soon I won't be able move because bitterness sits on my chest like an anvil. Joy is as slippery as a cuttlefish, almost impossible to catch. I used to be a ray of freaking sunshine. Glasses were half-full, rain clouds meant rainbows, and I had the audacity to hope. But over the last few years, I have learned that life is hard, and sometimes shit just happens. All the doors and windows are locked up tight and I'm suffocating without fresh air. Clouds are full of rain and storms. God is often silent, even when you cry His name.

I'm trying to find happiness in everyday, but I'm honestly just too worn down. And I get so, so angry that I have to do this all alone. Believe me, I'm happily divorced, and my family is great, but I'm irate that my boys' dad doesn't do anything for them. Not even a phone call on their birthdays. He's faded out of their lives, leaving me to pick up the slack, to be a mother and a father, when some days I don't even have what it takes to be a decent mom. I yell, I leave dishes undone, I feed them fast food, and sometimes I'm so busy that I have to ask myself if I even hugged my children today.

So I feel sorry for myself. It's not fair. Life wasn't supposed to turn out like this. I was supposed to be given a reward for all the bullshit I was dealt. I was supposed to fertilize and grow a garden from all the literal crap life has thrown at me. When do I get a break or something good? I know a lot of people have it worse. Believe me, I know. This is my pity party and I'll cry if I want to.

And don't get me started on the garbage can men out there. I try to stay far, far away from them, but somehow one always slithers in. I'm dumb enough to think that maybe this time it will be different. But it's never different. It's always the same POS man dressed in a different skin suit. I'm so done. I'm about to be eaten alive by my own warranted bitterness. Is happiness somewhere hidden in the heartache? How do I find light again? Or is life just hopelessness and getting to the end of the day?

Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?

You remember that Paula Cole song from 1996, right? "Where is my John Wayne? Where is my prairie song? Where is my happy ending? Where have all the cowboys gone?"  I feel ya, Paula. Cowboys (or lumberjacks, if you prefer) Cowboys are real men. There's something so attractive about a man who takes care of business, pays his bills, and loves his children, but lately, I've been wondering just where the fresh hell all the cowboys are. I'm still happy I broke up with my boyfriend. I'm not sad it's over. I'm relieved. But I am disappointed. In him, in my last boyfriend(s), in my ex-husband, and in men in general. I know there are good men out there, but are they either married or trapped in a black hole. 

Or am I just a sucker who keeps falling for the same selfish man-child in a different body? What really gets to me is that fact that I fell for it. I ate up the sugarcoated crap he fed me. I fell for it again. Again! I thought I was evolved. I thought I had figured out what I did and didn't want in a man. Maybe I'm doomed to repeat patterns. I go back to what I know, be it good or bad. A vicious cycle. Round and round I go. The only way to stop it, is to get out of the ever turning ring of fire. And I am out. 

I just have a hard time figuring out why these boys won't be men. The men I keep dating want to be better men, and that's the part that gets to me. The potential. But potential doesn't mean anything when there is no action behind it. These men are stuck, floundering around in mediocrity. I will never be happy with someone who is satisfied at the bottom when I will never accept less than the top. I'm all burned out on relationships, like for forever. I honestly aspire to be a cat lady. Within the next year, I'll be able to buy a house again. I will fill it with my boisterous boys and all the cats I can handle. I will be the Alpha cat and I will be happily alone. Does anyone want to buy a compound with me and live independently? Maybe start an Amazonian society, where we only bring men in to fix the plumbing and kill snakes?

I am happy alone, but yet, I keep waiting for my happy ending, even though I know there is none. I've read too many books, where it all comes together in the end. Those plot devises work, the climax has merit, and every bad thing lead to something great. The cowboy comes home and saves the day. But we do not live in a fairytale. We wake up early, make coffee, go to work, raise our children, and pay our bills. There are times when the sunset is the beauty we've been looking for, when the rain clouds produce rainbows. Then there are times when life is meaningless or it hurts to breathe. But we keep on going, with or without our cowboys, because we are survivalists. I don't expect a brain surgeon or a millionaire, just live up to your full potential. Strive to be better every day. Be the best you. Never settle, with life or love or happiness. Demand the best. You are worth more than you know. You deserve it. Be your own cowboy(girl) cause no one is riding in on a trusty stead at sunset to save the day.

A Free Bird and Feeling Fries from the Other Side

I know you all are waiting with baited breath to know what happened, so sit back, grab a bowl of popcorn, and listen up. I feel like since I put it all on Facebook, you have every right to know the truth. Maybe it will help someone else, maybe this entry will provide entertainment, or maybe it will just help me work through it. No matter what, I'm always ready to over-share with you.

I have always been a free bird and like it that way. I'm an incredible person. I have a body that won't quit and breasts that men only dream exist. I'm beautiful inside and out. I'm funny, kind, thoughtful, and smart. I've been through a lot and always come out on the other side in good humor. I have never needed a man to be a complete person. Sure I like a companion, and this is. . . because I really, really enjoy (Keep it clean, Lauren) . . . giving and receiving back rubs. I want to be mad at myself or sad that it's over, but I'm not. I did the breaking up. I have always preferred to be single. No one is better company than me, myself, and I. I have a full, happy life. I have an abundance of friends, a beautiful family surrounding me, and two incredible children that I am extremely proud of. I have a career I love and a school that is a family for me and my children.

So what happened? I thought you were in lllooovvveee. I was. He treated me and my kids well. We had fun together, but there was always something holding me back a little. I kept one foot on the floor.  I've written about my trusty gut before. She never lets me down. Sometimes I ignore her, but she is annoyingly always right. When I was staying with him during Christmas Break, I felt a shift in the tectonic plates of the relationship. Things weren't adding up, red flags, they were flying, smacking me right in the face. I'll keep the details to myself, but something happened, and in an instant, my feelings changed. I was woke and couldn't go back to sleep. That surprised me. How can I turn it off so quickly? Am I a robot? Am I bitter? Nope. I am smart.

So this weekend, I will eat a lot of what I call Feeling French Fries, drink a few bottles of wine, and sing loudly along with Beyonce's Lemonade. Middle fingers up, hands high. Point 'em in his face. Tell him boy, bye! I honestly feel bad for him because he lost the best thing he's ever had. But I don't feel bad for myself. I dodge the proverbial bullet. I made it out alive. I always will. I ain't sorry.

The night my heart checked out of it, I had a dream, a very vivid dream that I couldn't deny. I saw what was going to happen if I stayed. He isn't the man for me. I felt it. I saw the someone else. I also had dreams like this before I discovered my ex-husband's infidelities. My gut was talking to me while I slept. I believe in dreams. But I did stick around for a little while longer. Just to make sure, to give my gut some time to really kick me in the butt. I wanted it to work. I wanted to be okay, but my guts were tied in knots and wouldn't let me rest. Please always listen to your gut. Do it for me. Do it for yourself.

How did you get yourself into this? Haven't you been through this before? I have this habit, good or bad, of seeing the goodness in people, of letting it shine through the flaws. I believe everyone to be good and honest at heart. Sometimes I worry that the way I love people will get me into trouble. I am too loving, too forgiving, and too nonjudgemental. If my best friend killed someone, I would be the person she called to help feed the body to the gators. If I love you, I LOVE you. I will be there with you through anything, even murder. Lol. Is love my fatal flaw? Nah. It has opened my life to the world and the world has shown me love in return. But that does not mean I need to accept being mistreated or lied to. I know the difference between acceptance and taking it. The unicorn turned out to be just a regular old horse with a plastic horn taped to his head. That's the beauty of dating. You can take your time and get to know someone. You have time for the tape holding everything to come loose. The exit door is right there, your running shoes are on your feet, and all you have to do is speak up and say that's enough. BYE!

Hearts and Brains and Unicorns

It's October 12, practically Halloween, so I've started thinking about scary stuff. There are monsters, werewolves, and zombies. Oh, my! And then there's love, the most terrifying thing of all. The heart is soft and squishy, not made to survive without being protected by organs, ribs, bones, muscles, and skin. A heart needs to be kept tight beneath your breast if you want it to keep on beating. But when you love someone, your chest gets cracked open. There's your soft, squishy heart exposed to the elements. Vulnerable. 

The only other time I was vulnerable, I was ripped to shreds, and the worst of it is that I didn't really ever love my ex-husband. He loved me and pursued me, and I went along with it because he was the kind of man my church told me I should marry and I was, according to church, of the marrying age. It didn't matter who I married, as long as they were Mormon, and I felt so much pressure to do the "right thing". (I have a rant on this, but that's another blog topic.) I was sucked into an abusive downward spiral that I didn't know how to get out of it. I was vulnerable and it almost ruined me. I lost control of my life. I gave him everything, but it was never good enough. So, once I got free of him, I toughened myself back up. I made sure my heart was locked tight beneath my chest, and I refused to love anyone and it sucked. 

At least until recently. The right man doesn't make me feel powerless. He makes me feel accepted and loved and invincible. He has shown me that love makes me stronger.  My brain is a little worried still, but that's only because to a brain, love doesn't make sense. It's messy and complicated when my brain likes order and compartments. The beauty of love is too intricate and too erratic for my brain to comprehend. Only a soft, sensitive heart can understand it. But that's what love is, giving someone the power to break you, but trusting them not to. 

When I got divorced, I made a list of all the things I wanted in a man. The list consisted of things I never thought I could possibly find: someone from my past, divorced with kids, a manly man into sports, a Southerner, tall, hot, lumberjack (he has a lot of flannel and grows a nice beard so he qualifies), funny, cool af, someone who wasn't afraid of my fire, but liked it. I needed a strong man who wasn't intimidated by my bravery, like weak men were. Someone who saw me, really saw me, and loved me for who I was with no judgement. I was told that I was basically looking for a unicorn and unicorns didn't existed. Well, I'm here to tell you that unicorns are real and I am currently dating a very hot, manly one.

Being vulnerable isn't so bad. It's allowed for the most wonderful man to come into my life and change it forever. So if you want to do something but it's scares you, do it anyway. Like Halloween, sometimes the scariest stuff turns out the be the best thing that's ever happened to you. 

The Glow of 3 AM

Edited to update: I'm in the middle of packing and found old wedding photos that I didn't even know I had. Almost four years ago, I thought I threw all of that away. I still have the scar from the broken glass that shattered across the driveway. But in that haze of betrayal and awakening, I thought to myself, maybe I should save something, just to show my kids one day if they ask to see proof that their parents were married. So I tucked a few away in a box, and forgot about it. It's amazing the things you can hide away, even from yourself. Finding those pictures did number on me. They made me sad, not because I missed him, but because these photos were the last taken of the girl I used to be. The girl I finally am again.

Years ago, on that night, at 3 AM, when I found out about everything, the affairs weren't what stung. When I asked him why he wanted to rip our family apart, he told me it was my fault. He said, "It's because I don't love you. I never did." I don't love you. I never did. Not when we were dating, not on our wedding day, not when I gave birth to his sons. Never. I don't love this man, I haven't for over a decade, but the fact that he told me that he never loved me is an unhealing wound in my heart.

The fact that despite everything I did, how I turned myself inside out and shut my mouth, how I did everything he asked, how I raise his children, cleaned his house, bowed down on my knees, it wasn't enough. I know, I know, I am enough. I'm a million times better than him. I understand that. I've overcome so much, but sometimes, sometimes his voice comes back. The scar splits open and starts to weep. It makes me question everything about myself, even though I know it is a lie.

I stay up way too late every night. It's just what I do, and lately I've been thinking and thinking in the stillness of my apartment. I don't want y'all to think that I spend my life lamenting late at night. 98% of the time, I don't think about. I live in the miraculous moments in my life. I don't let it get to me. I'm elated to be on my own, excited to be my own person, but sometimes the memories slip in and make me think about the girl I used to be.

The Glow of 3 AM

You would feed me the Bible for breakfast, shove its pages down my throat, flog me with its spine at night. You used the bright, beautiful words of God to maim my soul, the Good Book to tell me I was bad. But you always skipped over the verses condemning rape and abuse and adultery. You and God and every other man were all immune.

You told me that I was made for you. Only you. Made to warm your bed, to bow down on my knees, to clean your toilets and make your meals. So I sealed my mouth, and you took my voice. You were never good enough for me, but I followed after you like a lovesick dog chasing after its own tail. I would never catch up. I would never find love. Too much. But never enough.

In the lightless bathroom, I scratched through the thin skin of my arms, trying to find the girl you wanted me to be. I stayed in the cold tub, a porcelain tomb, wondering how long it would take for the water to turn pink. While you hid in the closet, intermediately texting other women and watching porn, destroying our marriage by the glare of a six inch screen.

On New Year's Eve, I lay alone in our bed, long after putting the children to sleep. I dodged their questions of where their daddy was. Fireworks, shards of blue and red light, flared in the distance as you crept in at 3 AM, paled skin, smelling of sweat and sin. You kissed me on my forehead and lied to me. And then I lied to myself so I could sleep.

By the bloom of morning light, I am happy now because you’re gone, memories buried in the blackest of dirt, deep beneath my grandmother’s front porch. I no longer fear you, but sometimes your darkness seeps in through the cracks in the windows or the spaces in the door jams. It sinks its claws into my heart. But I exorcised your demons. You can abide here no more.

The girl who was never enough for you is everything. My flesh has healed, my knees no longer bruised, but I will never shut my mouth now, painted red on the Sabbath. I serve no man, only myself. My God is love, not condemnation. There is only brilliance within me and without. I am glowing. I am enough. Enough.

Weightless Words

 

Words. I live and breathe them. Written words have always been my salvation, a way to express myself, a way to escape into a world I created and controlled. I love to write them and build them and feel them, but I have come to understand that words mean nothing without action.

My ex-husband drew me in with words, flowery prose that flattered me and hid the darkness inside him. He spoke so many promises when we first got together, and I was naïve enough to believe him.This is a flaw I have, always looking for the good and being blind to the red flags. I thought that if I loved him enough, he would come through. That his words would mean something. But they never did. I never did either. When I found out about the affair and said that I would no longer stay in this abusive marriage, he took back the only words that ever mattered to me. He said that all those times he said I love you, he'd lied. He'd never loved me, not since the beginning. The word love was shattered, broken up into tiny shards that left me bloody. The glass is still embedded underneath my skin. It will always hurt. 

Words can be like bricks, piled high on your chest, weighing you down, breaking your ribs, puncturing your lungs, suffocating you.  Or words can be like desert rain, falling onto scorching asphalt, an empty promise dried up before it can relieve the drought. Pointless. Useless. Futile. So here I sit, still dealing with words that don't mean much, trying to figure out if it's worth it, what I'm worth. The answer is that I'm worth a whole hell of a lot, but that's harder for me to grasp, to put into action myself. Don't placate me with flaccid phrases.

So if you don't mean it, don't say it. I deserve better. Things I've also learned this past month are that people don't change, no matter what they say. People don't change. They pretend to. They smile and feed you shit sandwiches that you didn’t ask for, telling you it's cake. They shovel it right into your mouth, but you don't have to swallow it. Don't believe them until you see it. And don't give out second chances so easily because those second chances just give them another opportunity to hurt you again. If all you have is idle words, middle fingers up in the air, tell him, boy, bye! *Beyonce singing in the distance "I Ain't Sorry".*