Thursday, January 19, 2012

Wreckage

Stomped on a fancy flashlight my dad gave me for Christmas.

Shredded my lovely jersey knit sheets with a palm tree print.

Cut up an little yarn doll a student gave me at work.

Took a knife to my brand new, purple Snoopy Easter Bunny decoration and tore all the stuffing out.

Slammed the coffee table around, breaking it in half.

Tossed and ripped apart my cell phone to keep me from calling 911 again.


This is my short list.


I remember slowly packing up all my mementos after each one of these incidents, fearing a framed picture of my deceased mother would be next.  I used to have my cookie jar collection proudly displayed in the kitchen trying to make my own chaotic world at least look a little homey.  But I knew any item of mine would be subject to being torn apart during the times he was not slamming his fist into my head.

He felt bad about the flashlight the most, I think.  It was a huge, black rubber flashlight, very durable, probably meant to last forever ~ except the Rubbermaid company had not anticipated the viciousness inside my abuser when they designed that model.  He stomped on the flashlight like he was trying to flatten a Coke can.

I remember getting flashlights from him every year for Christmas after that.

He liked to acquire my things when he was not breaking them.

I remember him helping me clear out my things out of my dad's garage and offering to take my boxspring and mattress "off my hands" ~ just temporarily ~ when I had no room for it in my tiny studio.  He made me sign over one of my cars to him as a form of "security deposit" when he finally convinced me to move in with him.  I kept thinking the car would still be part of my life ~ as it had been my mother's ~ and had been passed down through three family members before it finally became mine.  But, no, he sold it a week later and kept all the money for himself. 

He "borrowed" my family's rocking chair, Dad's old area rug from the old house in Aptos, and my grandfather Buddy's dark green leather, vintage desk pad from the 1930s that I acquired after they sold Nan's ranch house.  I would cringe seeing him slosh his coffee around on that desk pad, knowing it would never be the same if I ever got it back.

Once he moved up north, he wanted to take some of my collectible kitchen items.  He liked my mother's flour sifter that had once been a part of Nanny's original ranch house on the old Chicken Ranch, and he thought it would look great in his country kitchen.  So he just took it. 

I remembered all of these things once he finally left me.

I had a few short weeks to leave his house in Felton, and I used the time alone to reclaim my personal things.  I stuffed the rocking chair ~ now in need of mend ~ in my storage unit, grabbed Buddy's old desk pad, and scoured the property for what else he had taken.

And then I remembered the flour sifter.

I got in my car and drove straight to the Sierra Foothills.  I drove straight through.  He saw me pull up on that country road and came out to greet me with surprise.  I told him I was here for my things.  His new girlfriend stood on the side patio where just a mere two weeks ago, he had barbecued me a BLT on the 4th of July.  I said nothing to her but kept walking to the back of the house.  And there it was.  Perched high on a shelf.  The old flour sifter.  Shiny metal with red trim.  A relic from my past.  A family tie to my family history. 

He had destroyed so much of me ~ my spirit ~ my body ~ my safety ~ my world ~ that he was not going to have the one last physical thing that still connected me to where I came from ~ my family ~ who I had pretty much been keeping this deep, dark secret from for four years.

I remembered my mother and my grandmother in that moment.  I remember the flour sifter that had been used to bake dozens of cookies, dozen of pies, dozens of cakes.  I remembered the women who I had looked up to in my youth, the strong women who came before me ~ who helped build the character I still had in me.

The little flour sifter gave me newfound strength that day.  I placed it on the passenger seat beside me and drove back home.  Straight through.  Not stopping once.

Friday, January 13, 2012

I Can Still Hear Her Laughing

He said I was to blame.

If only I had opened the door and let her in, he would say, then maybe she would still be alive today.

Yes, it was my fault she died, he said.

Her knock on the door and my refusal to let her in was what set him off that night.  My head was bashed into the wall three times because I would not let her in.

My legs buckled beneath me when he told me the news that she had died.  A mere nine months after he bashed my head into the wall.

She escaped from the Sunflower House the night she came knocking on our door.  I knew she was a fugitive, having violated her probation once again to go to drug and alcohol treatment.  I knew she would come knocking on our door.  But this time I would not let her in.

He said that maybe she would have found the strength to get clean and sober if I had just taken her in that night.  If I had just been her friend.  But I knew she had given up once again to get clean and sober simply by walking out that door that warm day in August.

I could not believe that she was really gone.  That the drugs had finally killed her.  They found her on someone's couch, all the life finally sucked out of her.  I could not stop shaking knowing it had finally happened.  A black cloud had followed her from Arkansas to the Santa Cruz Mountains, and no matter how many times she tried to get clean and sober, she always went back to the drugs and alcohol that ended up killing her.

So I was not to blame.

And I had been her friend.

I was a friend of A.A. and N.A., having never touched drugs and alcohol in my life, but I still had compassion for her and for all the struggles in her life.  I was part of her clean and sober world, a world that held such hope for a better day.

I used to visit her at her job in Los Gatos.  Drove over Highway 17 just to keep her company one night.  She got to bring her baby to work, and so I hung out with her and her young daughter and brought them dinner.

I remember helping her move all her household belongings out of her storage unit before they auctioned them off for default in payment.  We had a garage sale together that weekend.  And I remember giving her a lovely pink swan to have something pretty in her room that she rented from the man who claimed to be my boyfriend.  I wondered later what became of that pink swan.

I sat beside her at meetings each time she came back to the program.  I watched her as she went in and out of the program and recognized how frustrated her sponsor had become.  We worried each time she "went out."

And now she was gone. 

She had finally escaped once and for all.

The black cloud had finally lifted.

My head has long since healed from the night I did not let her in the knotty pine door that separated our two completely different worlds.

The memories remain.  But I try not to dwell on the night of August 22, 2003.

Because in my heart, I can still hear her laughing.  She had such a contagious laugh. 

I can still see the two of us driving on Highway 9.  Dinners at Don Quixote's. 

She was so full of life. 



.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Reinvention

The familiar feeling came over me again.

For a few days, I entertained the idea that maybe my old office would recall my old job back.  They seem to have more money now.  New jobs are created.  People are being promoted.  Maybe, just maybe, there is $34,000 left in the budget to bring me back.

I offered to be demoted.  I offered to work part-time.  I offered to take a two-month furlough.  But last spring, none of my offers were considered.  The decision was absolute that they needed to save that $34,000, and even I, with far more seniority than some other staff, would be the only one cut because of some odd layoff unit structure that did not make sense at all. 

And so I left last July.

It dawned on me yesterday that soon it will be six months since I was laid off.  Surely does not seem that long, and then on some level, maybe it really does seem that long.  The limited appointment in another department broke up the long stretch of months, but even with those two months of full-time employment, it still really has been nearly six months since my whole world was disrupted.

I kept thinking maybe they will really bring me back.  I actually had one last shred of hope. 

And then, suddenly, I thought, "Would I really want to go back?"

And I realized that, no, I would never want to go back.

My father always told me, "Never return to the scene of a crime."

He was laid off in a different kind of way back in 1993 from a company he had devoted his whole work life to for 33 years.  Told to take full retirement with no penalty or to take severance pay.  But there was no way that managers over 50 with over 30 years in the company were allowed to stay.  And so he left.

He told me the feeling of being laid off never really goes away.  That I might even replay the layoff in my dreams even years after I have moved on from this obstacle in my life right now.

I can relate to my father on a whole new level now that I have experienced at age 46 what he experienced at age 53.  I can relate to the sadness and anger of being simply discarded by an organization we both were committed to for so many years.  We have had many deep conversations on these personal matters that we never could have had when I was a naive 28-year-old during the year he lost his job.

I think about my old job, my old desk, my old routine and can no longer imagine myself even there.  I have stopped wondering how they are coping without me, knowing they have long moved on with their new team, their new hires, their completely new goals.

I am no longer sad.  No longer angry.

I almost want to thank the lady who I think made the final decision to lay me off instead of even considering reduced hours or furloughs.  But I heard she got laid off just a couple of weeks after me.  And just yesterday, I wondered how she felt nearly five months after being laid off.

I want to thank that lady. 

"Thank you for laying me off!!!" I would shout out if I ever saw her walking down the street.

She gave me the best gift anyone has ever given me.

The power to reinvent myself at a time of my life that I never thought to reinvent myself.

To grab a hold of my dreams again.

To realize I am destined for a better life.  Just by being myself.  And reaching for those dreams all over again.

To not being afraid to have my writing be read by a wider audience.  To have my real name attached to those words.  To get recognition for those words.

"Thank you for laying me off!!!" I shout to myself ~ in my deepest thoughts ~ as I get excited all over again about what life holds for me.

Looking forward ~ not back ~ being grateful.

And understanding this rocky journey was all meant to be ~ as I smile ~ hit the publish button ~ with all my dreams intact.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

One Secret at a Time

He manages to weave his way back into my thoughts just when the flashbacks have begun to dissipate ~ just when the writing I am doing has given purpose to what I endured ~ has given me of a vision of what I need to share with the rest of the world ~ all with the hope that my truth continues to help other people who have a shared experience.

Along came an email just before Christmas with loving thoughts about feeding me creamed corn if we were still together.

And all I could think was:  Would you charge me $20 for that bowl of creamed corn?

I laughed to myself in that moment, remembering how I hate creamed corn, and therefore; he must have me mixed up with someone else.  Or maybe I ate the creamed corn just to have something to eat?  So many moments of those years together are a blur, and yet so many are as crystal clear as having my head bashed into a wall all over again.

I think of him again during this bout of unemployment.  I think of all the money he extorted from me, and how I wish I could have that money now.

The university has not called to let me know about the latest pref-rehire interview, and so I had to go back on unemployment benefits once again after my last temp job ended, and I now worry if the benefits will run out.  I really could use the lawyer and bail money he made me pay back in payments for two years after I called 911 on him.

I wonder if he ever thinks of what he did and how he should make amends.  I wonder if he ever thinks that what he did was actually wrong.  And then I shake my head and instinctively know he never thought that what he did was wrong.  That's why he made me pay him back the lawyer and the bail money.

I walk through Santa Cruz, remembering how much I have lost.  I ache for the lost contact with the animals he brought into my life during those dark days ~ the precious souls I can never really see again because of what he did to me. 

I tell myself that I have to think of myself each time I miss the animals.  That I had to leave, or I may have died.  Yes, these are my thoughts as I walk the streets of Santa Cruz.  That I really could have died.  I see my reflection in the Old Vets Hall window and remind myself that I am still here.  That I did not die.  That I may have lost everything.  But I did not lose myself.  That I have been rebuilding myself for 6 1/2 years, and the biggest foundation of the new me was laid down the moment I started the writing blog.

I ask myself why.  Why did it happen to me?  Why did I let it happen to me?  I ask myself why, and I do not even know if I want to know the answer.  I do not need to have an answer to know that some amount of good ~ some amount of hope ~ can come out of the pain that is now a part of my past.  All I know is that I will keep writing.  That I will keep sharing my truth.  That I will keep helping others through my words. 

One sentence at a time.  One story at at time.  One secret at a time.  



Uncensored