Glorious

Mom and I always use to think about our future life stories in titles.  We would come up with all sorts of titles we would use for our future writings.

Mom had long been gone when I wrote my first title to describe my relationship with him.  Josh and Jahnava had given me a purple journal for Christmas 2001.  And I wrote one word at the top:  Glorious. 

How ironic.  But that was how it all first started.  And that was how it suddenly changed only 9 days into the relationship on the day I cut my hair "without his permission."  I have grown it long ever since.

The purple journal sits on a little desk in my rented furnished studio.  I have kept it all these 9 years, and still the only word ever written in it is "Glorious."

I never could write any more.

I would always write scenes in my head during the bouts of verbal abuse I usually endured when he drove recklessly around the hairpin curves of Highway 9.  I remember leaning my head against the passenger window in one of his fancy cars, looking up at the lights and the redwood trees flashing by as he sped and sped around the Santa Cruz Mountains ~ thinking this would be one of many scenes in the movie I will make ~ this is the exact angle that the shot should be filmed ~ right from the corner of my eye leaning against the window ~ as the world flashed by me during his volatile rage ~

I remember taking out a 500,000 dollar accidental death and dismemberment insurance policy through my university benefits ~ the highest you could choose ~ just in case something bad happened to me in his car or on the back of his motorcycle.

I would envision my screenplay and eventual movie of what was happening to me.

And during our last year together, I started picking out which actors and actresses would play us.  I had fun with that one, and eventually settled on Billy Bob Thornton who was married to Angelina Jolie at the time.  Even the age difference matched, but I did not want Angelina Jolie to play me, so I chose Joan Cusack instead.  And so the stories in my head helped me cope with the unbearable reality I was faced with every minute of every day for four years.

Later, I thought about changing the title to "Vicious."  I had never heard of a movie that already had used the title "Vicious" ~ so I thought this would better describe who he was and what was actually happening to me.

The title then became "Glorious/Vicious" in my head for a few years after we broke up.

But Delia and I talked about these titles on one of our last visits, and we agreed that "Glorious" should stay.  Because that is how these relationships really do start with these type of men.  How else could I have not walked away from Day One?

Within 9 days, it was too late, and he had already gained complete control over me.  I was like the young kidnap victim Elizabeth Smart with the ability to physically run away from her captor but without the mindset to even try.  Stockholm Syndrome was already starting to take effect, and to this day, I remember my life with him as if I had been some type of prisoner.

Freedom is Glorious.