| profile entries archives refresh |
 �what is Man? a miserable little pile of secrets.� - andr� malraux "i desire to live in peace and to continue the life i have begun under the motto, to live well you must live unseen." - rene descartes note random entry image credit design by : ilazarn ikmal powered by : diaryland |
here's to tomorrow.
2018-09-04 @ 11:25 p.m.
do you know what it feels like to be happy? i didn't for a really long time. there were times that i was happy, but i still felt empty inside. like so much of the time i spent with boy. i was "happy" i wasn't alone. i was "happy" that the sex was good (great). i was "happy" when he was in a good mood and wasn't treating me like less than trash. my soul wasn't happy though, because i knew so much of it was a lie. my gut always knew. i knew that he was lying to me about so many things. i knew that he didn't care about how his actions were affecting me or his child. i knew deep down inside that he would leave me in a heartbeat when he found someone better, and that i was lying to myself when i convinced myself that he didn't mean it, even though he said it to me so many times over the years. "he's just kidding! he loves you, he doesn't really mean it." i knew, i knew. i knew the whole time. it's amazing what you can convince yourself of when you're desperate enough. now, i feel both happy and full and it's not hollow. it's solid and warm and comforting. contentment. belonging. safety. i've mentioned before that i watch a lot of self-help and abuse recovery videos on ytube to aid in and supplement my therapy. (my therapist says i'm doing amazingly, by the way.) if not for these videos, listening to the experiences of other women, i wonder if i would have ever realized what i had been trapped in. in a video i was watching the other day - a talk by the amazing author of why does he do that? - he was saying that people often look down on the women who stay with abusive men because they can't understand why they stay. this is a well known fact. but he said that another big contributor to why they stay is the woman's embarrassment - that one day she's going on and on about how this guy is amazing, he's a prince, he's the one! and then the next thing you know he's doing her dirty, and she's too ashamed to admit that she didn't see this coming, and that the guy she picked, who she was speaking so highly of, could do such things to her. i thought i wrote in here that that was a lot of why i never mentioned the really bad things about boy in here. even though this is anonymous, even though no one who i know in real life reads this, even though i knew what he was doing to me was wrong, i felt so ashamed of myself. ashamed for being so stupid (that i didn't put it together once i learned of his past behavior), so gullible, so forgiving when he totally didn't deserve it, so passive. and then, once it got really far and really bad, i was ashamed of not putting my foot down and putting a stop to it sooner. the author said that the best way to protect yourself against getting into this type of relationship again is to avoid dating when you're vulnerable, or when you're searching for something. and i know now, after these many hours of watching, listening, and learning, that i was extremely vulnerable when i reached out to boy and kicked off what would be 8 years of pain. well, 7.5 years. he was amazing for the first 6 months. then for a year after that, he was pretty good but the subtle abuse had already begun. i was searching for myself, but i didn't know that yet. i had just started teaching, even though i knew before the first day that i didn't want to do it. i had been pressured into taking the job. i had just been pressured into buying a house that i didn't really want to buy. all of my college friends had moved on and away, and i still had best friend but we didn't live together. my mom and i didn't get along at all. i was desperately lonely, so deeply depressed, and i felt trapped in a job that i hated because now i was obligated to pay this $200k mortgage somehow. at the time, my brother was hanging with a really bad crowd and was in the beginnings of what became a serious opiate addiction. i reached out to boy as an extremely depressed, wounded gazelle who was just looking for some kind of connection. just like the shark he is, he grabbed me by the neck and dragged me under, sometimes letting me up to breathe. instead of seeing it for what it was - he was a predator, bent on devouring me - my broken brain started to love him even more when he'd allow me those brief gasps of air. how kind and generous of him, i would think. he must really love me to allow me these occasional moments of respite. not until recently did i realize and truly understand how fucked up this dynamic was. i don't want to get sucked down the rabbit hole of the timeline of events. that's an entry i've been working on for a long time, that i wonder if i will even post or if it's just something i've needed to do for me. it's really helped me process everything and see how 1,000 little cuts killed me. also, the book i mentioned above helped me in such a profound, significant way. the sense of knowing something was wrong but not being able to articulate it, or put my finger on it was constant and oppressive. and i know now, that's why my anxiety spiraled so out of control. he was abusive. i was in an abusive relationship. i didn't understand then what i know now: the good times don't invalidate the abusive ones. it's like all of the pieces of a grand puzzle fell into place over the past year, like i finally discovered the formula to this incredibly complex math problem to which i've always had the values but never the way to arrive at the solution. if only you could understand how this feels. it's still so new and overwhelming that it's hard for me to put into words. my life right now is better than it has ever been, at any point. -- boss told me today that mr. able invited him to a bbq because mr. able is going back to his country now. we don't know when he'll be back so he wanted to say goodbye to everyone. i told boss he'd better go because mr. able is his best friend and they've been through some shit together. also, mr. able only lives like 7 minutes away from the office so he has no excuse. put in an appearance and go. so we all were leaving and boss is like ok, so you're coming? and i said no, i have a lot of stuff to do (which in fact i did, but i really just didn't want to go to a party full of people i didn't know). he and his nephew yelled at me (good-naturedly) and we went on our ways. i got done with my errands in about an hour and a half and found myself only 7 or so minutes away so i texted boss to see if they were still there, and they were, leaving shortly. i figured what the hell. i'm supposed to be doing things that i don't really want to do, especially social things, so i'll just make an appearance. i pulled up to mr. able's house and the street is full of cars. i parked a few houses down but didn't hear a lot of noise so i figured it wasn't packed. i walked in the front door, as i always have, and just as i'm coming in, mr. able's head pops out from the deck door and we see each other and he's like "... omg. you're here!" and i'm like lol hi, and i walk into the kitchen and see boss's sister and mr. able's girlfriend talking. they freeze and are like "omg!" boss's sister did a double take and freaked out and hugged me. mr. able took me outside to say hello to everyone and it's this super chill mix of 4 of his cousins, a few of his gf's family members i've met before, a few of her friends, boss, his sister and her two kids, and a couple of random stragglers. everyone is shocked i showed up. mr. able takes the time to quiet everyone down so he can tell them how smart and amazing and nice i am, and how the two of us accomplished some amazing work together. he said he knew i was good people when his dog who barked at almost everyone, loved me like crazy. then he made me a little shot of this amazing chocolate orange liqueur. i chatted with boss and his sister a bit (his sister is married to a rich dude and she doesn't work so she was telling me about her newfound love of experimenting with cooking asian foods), then mr. able introduced me to his cousin and spoke so highly of me that his cousin asked me if i would work for him in the spring for a few hours every night. i drank another shot and chatted around some more with everyone, then i left with boss and his sister and her kids. mr. able walked us out and we all took silly pictures together. boss's sister and i exchanged numbers so we could talk about cooking, and mr. able told me that it was an honor to know me and have me in his life. i have a smile on my face as i type this. this is the kind of love and goodness i felt when i sat in the teepee at almost this same exact time last year. next week i am road tripping with my brother and his wife. for the first time in a long time, i am not afraid of going so far away from home. i have no anxiety at all about it - in fact, the same edgy vibration that i used to always feel has been replaced with this warm, tingling excitement. i can't wait to go, i can't wait to spend time with them, i can't wait to see something new. i had to go through this. i needed this. to find more of myself, to find my people and my new family. i understand that my mother will never approve, and that's okay. i will never have that fantasy, gilmore girls mother-daughter relationship. it will always be mommy dearest, and i accept that. i will fulfill this need for love and connection elsewhere, and i will never again give away a piece of my soul to get it. the absence of that piece is too heavy. i'm not awful and terrible. that shit is inside me, and i hope i can make it completely go away one day. i'm working on it. but i'm okay. people like me. but it's also okay if some don't. boy has a serious personality disorder. that's not my fault and i understand now that i would never have been able to fix him or please him. some people are just broken and bad. some of them know that they're hurting you, exploiting you, demeaning you, belittling you, destroying you. they know, and they don't care. they know, and they choose to keep doing it. i needed this experience for so many reasons, but mostly i needed to know how bad things could truly be. until i felt true hopelessness, until i had lived in that place for some time, i never had an accurate gauge for the range of experiences i could have in my life. but now i know, now i see what life can be. here's to tomorrow. |