Breaking Free

I've been thinking a lot about the past and how my past has shaped me into who I am today. One of those shaping moments was my marriage. 

Thinking about my ex-husband used to fill me with fear and I would be sick to my stomach but now, it feels like relief. Relief that I made it through and relief that I can sit here and tell this story. Even my own mother never knew how bad it truly got, I regret not telling her the complete truth. 

Part of me held back because I didn't want her to worry, and if you knew my mom - she was a worrier, and part because I couldn't stand to face the mistake I had made. 

So for this post, I want to discuss my last therapy session I had while I was still married. This was the starting point of the breaking free. 

 “You need to leave. You need to leave it all behind” My former therapist said those parting words to me. 

I was unconvinced. Leaving meant conceding, losing, letting the abuse win. He couldn’t have my city. I wouldn’t let him. I’d already given him so much. 

But was this the fight I wanted? What was left for me once everything was boxed and taped shut? What if I picked a different fight? 

What if this time I chose myself going forward? 

“I’m afraid if I stay,” I said, “that I’ll see him everywhere. We know the same people. Everyone knows us as a couple. I’m going to go out to eat, and people are going to ask me how he’s doing. What am I supposed to say? They’re going to ask me what happened.” I paused, trying to breathe deeper. “I don’t know what do to.” 

In that brief moment with thoughts swirling, rage building, and my therapist listening, my mind jumped to the bit of truth I could cling to: He didn’t kill me. 

Even though filing for divorce felt like sure death, it wasn’t. And that was something. 

 If I stayed, I would tip-toe around our mishaps, around the devastation and the lies. I would treat his name tenderly, habitually understating a version of our lives: “Oh, we just weren’t compatible. But we’re still friends.” 

Friends. That word did it for me. How can you be friends with someone who beat you? 

“I’ll go.” 

And I did. 

A few days later, I packed my car with everything I owned, and drove. I was heading to Columbus to start over. 

I gifted my now ex-husband a city I grew to love and the tradeoff was my soul. It tasted like both success and failure, bitter, salty, sweet, and decadent. I was deciding to choose me. 

The drive was full of contradictions. Feelings screamed at me as I drove: YOU’RE SO SCREWED, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? and YOU DID IT. Because that’s exactly what change is: the complete and utter destruction of our lives (the messing it up, as it were) while we begin to create in the marvelous unknown. I was standing near the cliff of tears and laughter—I don’t think I’d ever been that close. 

I’m allowed to change, grow, learn, redo, undo, and choose again, and again, and again. 

Why? Because. Simply, because. That is reason enough. 

And as I drove, I vowed the following: 

I will never date again….

Until I am ready. Until I know my heart can survive being vulnerable. 

I hate cooking….

With someone who criticizes my ever move and choice in the kitchen. Cooking is therapy, so if I want to dance it out while chopping onions and singing loudly - deal with it. 

I don’t like dancing….

With people who cannot see me. Dancing where I can be fully in my body, present with other humans, is a mighty spiritual experience and I will do it anywhere.