Everyday Stranger

Resilience

Besides the horrible experience I had with Michael, I have had one seriously bad relationship with another man. I met him when I was 16, and he was 28. I married him when I was 18. I divorced just after I turned 20.

Yup. I have a history of being a fuckwit when it comes to judging the opposite sex. Then again...who doesn't?

For those of you who have been here a bit and are doing the math, yes, he was my Pale Blue Tile man. The weightlifter, the test-drive model, the obliterator of innocence.

Let's call him Allen, shall we?

I left home, finished high school, and went straight into university at an early age. Allen and I moved in together. He proposed. It seemed like a good idea. I said yes.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

We were married a few months later, and it wasn't long after that in which things started to go downhill. We were very different people (and it was proof that people have no business getting married at 18. Good God. You don't even know your needs at 18, how are you supposed to know how to look after anyone else?) He hated the fact that I read books all the time. I hated the fact that the only culture he was imbued with was a lust for "Beavis and Butthead". He was Catholic, and traditional. I was lost from the Catholic flock (and stayed that way!), and far from conservative. We had nothing in common, save for a desire to make sure we wouldn't spend our entire lives alone.

The shower incident happened. I mostly forgave him, but couldn't really feel comfortable with him again. We moved to another state for his work, and I struggled to get a place in the local university mid-semester and find a job. We couldn't take each other. I tried to suggest counselling but that was unheard of, his ego bristled. We fought constantly, and I even told him I didn't love him anymore, that it was over. We should move on. We should go our separate ways.

He didn't listen. He never listened. I wonder if anyone ever does.

Two months later, I firmly told him it was over in a way that he would understand. And I finally reached him. I went to him in the living room and told him I was leaving, it was over. I was crying, I didn't know if I was doing it right. I had never broken up with anyone before, was there some protocol about breaking up that I was missing? A checklist I could tick off for the emotional waste-landers?

He was sitting on the couch. He looked up at me, and stood. In one motion, he had his hands on my arms, picked me up and threw me into the wall. I sat there, stunned. I wasn't hurt, but had to just sit there and shake my head, aghast. Surely that hadn't happened. Surely I had just imagined it.

He left the house to stay with a friend that night. I stayed alone in our flat. Looking back, it's funny-I can't recall a single thing about that evening.

The next day, I went out shopping for some house things that were needed. When I came back, the house had been cleaned out of anything and everything valuable. All of it. Everything was gone. My credit cards were reported stolen, my car was nearly out of gas, and all I had was the $100 I had in my wallet. He left me a note telling me he was locking me in this house, to give me time to think, to realize my mistakes, and to do the right thing.

I almost went crazy that night. The silence was deafening, not a radio, TV, nothing...Just my thoughts, whipping around my head, telling me that I would die if I stayed like this. It was that night, alone and in the dark, that I reached deep down inside myself and decided that I would not be beaten by this. By him. This was not the end of me.

The next morning I packed up my car. Fuck you, I thought. You want me to have some thinking time, ace? You got it. I was driving a little VW rabbit convertible, and I filled it with my clothes, my cats, and a few books. That was it. Everything else that I owned got left behind.

I drove to where he was staying, and met him in the yard. He came out, swaggering, and asked me if I was prepared to admit my mistakes.

I looked him in the eyes.

"Ever meeting you. That was my biggest mistake." I replied.

The smirk disappeared from his face. In one motion, he reached forward, grabbed me, and slammed me into a tree. When I got my breath back, I stood up and looked at him. I didn't even realize what was happening, I didn't understand at the time what was going on. I still don't. I felt an itch in my palm, and my fingers stretched out. My arm flew backward, and in an arc, it came forward and slapped him hard, across the face.

He stumbled backwards in surprise and fell to the ground.

"You don't have the right to ever touch me again." I said softly, feeling my face pound with fury and my body posed in battle stance. "Never. In anger or otherwise. Never. That thinking time you gave me? I figured out what the right thing for me was."

And with that I turned around, got in my car and drove away. I left him, driving away with only the contents in my little car, $100, and the hope that my future couldn't possibly be worse than the present.

I don't advocate violence, actually, despite my boxing work. I don't even think I should have hit him. Am I sorry I did it? No, not really. It was the only time I have ever hit another person, and as far as I am concerned, the only time I ever will do.

I know people think I have issues, and I do. Simon made a joke about it, and I have seen comments here about it. I have some issues, but it's about fucking time I started to deal with them. My issues don't own me. I own them. Some have made comments here that I am arrogant and self-involved. The truth? Sometimes I am so incredibly scared that it is hard to face the day. Is it bravery that makes me confront what is going on, or just survival? I don't know, but trust me when I say-if you think I am full of myself, you don't know me. The only thing I can get cocky about is my risotto recipe.

People tell me I am resilient. That I am strong. That I am brave. Personally, I think that this is just life. Sometimes it's true-I got the short end of the stick. Yes, I'm strong...but have I ever had a choice? Should I have broken down in the yard and begged forgiveness from a man I did not love and could not trust? Should I lay down and waste away?

Resilience. It conjures up images of heroes and battle-weary survivors. It's a romantic word, one that indicates choice and options (do I bend, or do I break?), perhaps neither of which I have an abundance of. To me, the word resilience means not letting what happens to you ruin you. And while it might seem that I may be one of the strongest women out here, I have one more secret that I will share, sometime soon. One last wall to break down and tell people the truth about. The truth about what I went through to learn what I am made of.

And when I do, I will be free.

-H.

PS-8 more days to Judgement Day.

PPS-in a strange twist of irony, I was chosen for Survivor.

Posted by Everydaystranger at November 10, 2003 09:34 AM | TrackBack