I saw one of those random memes today that we are all, constantly, exposed to – you know the type – just words on a colourful backdrop describing succinctly an experience or world you knew but can’t sum up quite so tritely. To do my own history justice (much less anyone else’s), I have never felt okay with just some incredibly cleverly worded meme about pain.

However, if my blog posts are often TLDR… here’s a little haiku about what I remember:

Sitting in a chair
Doubled over in pain
Asking for an ambulance
You sip your single malt
and say ‘no’

I can’t exactly speak to what most people in my world experience when it comes to relationships. I’ve had multiple people ask me why I’m not dating; I’ve had men ask me to dance; I’ve had friends wanting to match-make. I’m not old, my appearance is acceptable generally… but how to find the words in the moment to explain that I’m happy in the now? How to explain to dear and cherished friends who have good lives (not without their own challenges) but… most of my friends have a loving husband and beautiful children … that I don’t know if I could? That any future relationships must be only on my terms, and will not likely involve traditional and acceptable forms of marriage or partnerships in the Christian or Catholic world. Friendship, the platonic, easy-going sort, for me, is all that I want.

When you live a certain type of life, it’s hard to understand how everyone else lives. I intellectually realize that most women won’t share the experience of being denied medical care when they are having an allergic reaction to an antibiotic their doctor prescribed and are writhing in pain from the cramps, while watching the denier gleefully relate his score in some video game and sipping his whiskey of choice… most women don’t know what it’s like to have a man accuse you of denying him access to your body (for all of 48 hours) to the point he punches his fist through the wall over your head and then insists you help him cover up the reason his arm is now broken… most women cannot understand how it feels to have every glass of water you pour yourself be consumed in front of you, leaving you only a mouthful of spit to be grateful over, or be shouted at across the house while you are working to be told to bring coffee/water/snax because his game or his Lego or his news is more important than the job you are doing that helps to pay the bills.

Most women don’t know how it feels to crawl into the smallest tight ball you can in bed every night and hope not to be noticed night after night and the loneliness that comes from feeling so vulnerable to someone who has removed every connection from your world, every family member and every friend.

Abuse like this doesn’t start this way… it starts with small, incremental comments and slander against your family. Pitting siblings against you, claiming parents love others more than you, it happens when suddenly your person is unhappy and you wish to please them so you start baking from scratch and imitating their mother, it happens when you start greeting them at the door with a fresh drink of water or otherwise, it happens when you aren’t looking… and suddenly – suddenly – you are property; before you know how far into this jail you have descended… you have a child and so you can’t just leave; and now you live a life frightened of the person you are with. Someone smart, perhaps funny, someone who appeared to be protecting you has turned into a monster you fear will be around every corner. You start wearing modest bedclothes, covering up more than is your nature when around them, being more quiet, more agreeable, never quite challenging them…. you wear sexy clothes to appease, you lose weight, eat less, become less, try to disappear, try to please, try to look a certain way, act a certain way, be someone you’re not, you do anything to just keep the peace…

I’m not alone. There are millions of us. Some who get their teeth knocked out in a brutal fight. Some who will never again sleep without a light on. Some who will never again sleep without a dog close by. Some who intentionally set booby traps around their home to feel safe while they sleep.

I have finally found a calm in my life that I can only attribute to the goodness of God. A stability that isn’t from money (there’s never enough of that), but a stability that comes from knowing that this day and the next day and the day after that will not be marked with anger or violence or outbursts or meanness or snide comments. A stability that comes from freedom to call whomever I wish to call at any time of day, a stability that comes from the freedom to hug my boys without comment, love my family how I choose to love, pray how I wish to pray, serve the food I wish to serve, and work the jobs I wish to work. My life and my time are my own, and that is not a small thing.

I pray that all women find that someday in their life, and if they are so blessed to have partner who cherishes them for their strengths and beauty and gifts, to appreciate their many blessings and may their partnership be strong and long in whatever form that it takes.

God bless you – I pray you never know a history like my own….