The File

I thought about my file at the Walnut Ave Women's Center today.

I wondered if they still have it, if it's been archived, if the contents still exist.

I remember that file as being some type of safe deposit box like Mom's old jewelry being held at the bank.

I remembered each item carefully entered into my file.

A restraining order from November 2001 all filled out and just waiting for me to have the courage to sign and date it.

Two polaroids of a bruised leg, abuse not caused by him but by his ex who showed up at the door on a night I was visiting him.

Love letters left at my door once I had finally left the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Safety plans unused but still written.

I would like to see my file. 

I would like to look at my past ~ physically in the face ~ and remember the events even more clearly than I do today ~ from an even deeper level of pain ~ seeing the contents of that file again.

I blocked out so much of the daily events of those four years, and just today, I realized how I had blocked out the bruises inflicted by his ex so long ago.

I remember the advocate who took my pictures.

I remember the old blue couch I sat on in the living room of the Walnut Ave Women's Center.

I am struggling to remember my first advocate's name.

I think it was Andrea.

Blond and beautiful with a strength of spirit that gave me hope in my early days that I could be like her.  That I could be free.

I met her within a couple of days of Halloween 2001, the night I drove myself to Dominican.

I had only been with him three months, and this was already my second attempt to break free.

Andrea would coach me on how to respond to his calls ~ if I even picked up the phone.

She would give me catch phrases to yell into the phone, like "No More Drama!" and then hang up.  I ended up changing my phone number two times.

I remember how hard we worked on that restraining order and how terrified I was to sign it.  I really feared the abuse would escalate from the moment he was served the papers.  I could never sign it.

During those early years, I would think of my file and the restraining order that laid within it.  A file with my name on it.  A file with my history of early abuse.

I would like to see my file.  I would like to read my restraining order.  I would like to imagine what my life may have been like if I had signed it right then and there.  On November 2, 2001.  Ending an abusive relationship before it escalated.  Before it escalated into something even more horrific than those early days in 2001.

But my history was detoured by not taking action.  I went through four more years of abuse.  Andrea had long left the center, and my new advocates became Karen and Lorene.

I continued on my journey to break free.

The women at the Walnut Ave Women's Center were with me every step of the way.

They gave me sanctuary from the abuse.  They gave me a place to hope for a better life.

They held my file in their hands.  They held my history in their hands.

They held me in their hands.

Until the day I was finally able to leave.  Both him and the Walnut Ave Women's Center.

Closing a chapter of my life.

Closing my file.

Chronicling my past.

The abuse now archived.



Uncensored