Today I Am…

Also known as, How To Not Be Broken

The story usually begins something like this:

Dude... I totally understand.

Friend: So why did you get a divorce?
Me: Bad things happened.

Friend: What do you mean? Bad things? Did she cheat on you?
Me: Well yes, but that’s not the bad things.

Friend: Then what?
Me: Just really bad things.
Friend: Okay… did she abuse you?
Me: Yeah…
Friend: What? Did she slap you? [ haha ]
Me: Something like that.

Friend: In all seriousness what are you talking about?
Me: Well. I used to wake up on the floor of the bathroom with the lights turned out and the door closed.
Friend: Why would you sleep in the bathroom?
Me: I didn’t.  That’s just were I woke up.

The first time, when you get seriously abused (Not slapped, not even punched… but severely) It changes you.  After she apologized and some of the healing began. I told her, “If you ever do that again, I will leave you.”  But…

[ Did I do something wrong? Is it my fault? ]

Your mind changes. You start to think your terrible. That somewhere in there it’s your fault.  So when it happened again, all you can do is close up, and just try and make it as little painful as possible. [ See, I didn't fight back. ]

In High School, I studied martial arts and was really quick and I could stop the punches.   When we first started dating, this became somewhat of a joke, as she would she would try and slap me, and I would block it. [ Later she actually told me she was frustrated with this ]

So, when the second time happened. I looked at her, and while she was swinging and kicking, I dropped my guard [ Intentionally ] and she cold clocked me, and I went down.  The world went fuzzy around me, and I could feel the extended blows as I drifted out… The pain went away… and then I came back.

In the flurry of my tears, I begged her to stop. I couldn’t get up. I begged.  It was ignored.

These moments changes you.

[ I did something wrong. It is my fault. ]

When ever the fights would began, I would try and get her to do it in the bathroom.  It was the farthest from the rest of the house.  And I didn’t want the kids to hear.  [ She had no qualms with having it out in the front room ]

She would be screaming at me, for something that was a miss-communication.  Her fear and anger was always there.  She lived in it.  It was her life. And when a miss-communication happened.  In her mind, it was her fears realized.

I would try and beg for her to calm down.  That the kids could hear her.  That she had it wrong [ You never tell her she is wrong. Never. ]. This of course would send her into a rage.  And since I wanted to fix everything. I would let her. Thinking, she will learn, she will know that this is wrong.  It can’t be my fault. She will know… I just know it.

[ I am wrong. It's my fault. ]

Then based on a really poor miss-communication, and her failure to comprehend what she was reading. She decided that she was going to cheat on me.  [ This wasn't new.  This was just the defining period of time ]

My head it the bedroom floor, and for the first time ever, I attempted to reach a phone. But I couldn’t I had no strength.  It was blinding. And as my eyes closed it was shaken away as my neck was grabbed like a kitten and my head was banged again’st the floor many times.

That is all I remembered.

Prior to this, was an argument.  Where I was declaring in anger that I didn’t believe her. That she had to be lying.

I woke up. It was dark. My eye was stinging and I could feel the softness of the bathroom rug. There was a pillow, but I don’t know how it got there. I slowly climbed to my knees.  I didn’t even want to look into the mirror.

I opened the door, from a crawl, to a darkened,  quiet and peaceful bedroom. The fan was blowing and I could see someone laying in the bed.  So I slowly climbed into the side of the bed. My body was hurting, my eye was stinging and neck felt like it had hot knives stabbing into it.   Then I felt a movement to the other side and the last thing I remembered for the night was the visuals of an impressive array of stars.

[ It isn't my fault ]

What changed me the most was that I wanted to be in love. I fell into the “I was in love, with being in love.”  I didn’t know how to do it anymore. I knew the rules and knew the tricks.  I knew how to touch.  But my mind was no longer in sync with my heart. I knew how to be in love, but I was now afraid, that being broken would find me as a damage person. Who wants to be a relationship with someone who is damaged? Who want’s a weakness in a man? I used to be extremely strong.  I had it all going on.  I loved and provided for and I even did the laundry, dishes, cleaned the house and made a pretty good living.  I made life pretty easy to live in. And I think I was a great father [ I still think so ] With a home filled with love, compassion and good strong, very loving father and husband.

I even slowed danced in the kitchen, and you know what that got me?  It got me wanting it back. That’s what it did.

There are moments, where my heart leaps, but it’s scared to jump.  I learned what jumping does when you aren’t prepared, and it is something that haunts me. [ See, I did not fully apply the words of my Ropes instructor to my life, until years later ]