Testimonies: of Hagar, of Tamar, of all those Who survive to Tell of all They knew not and who They Became.

My daughter calls it the house with the big stairs. My son remembers the movie nights, the cardboard fort plans, his first walk in the woods, and why we were really there.

March 30th, 2022… August 11th, 2023. Indeed our inability to know the future is that which saves our lives. I never would have left, and I certainly would not have lived, had I known even a piece of what would be and what those months would contain. Tracing back all the years the path that degenerated me, though we kept it hidden mostly from the world and the ones we needed to like us, the shame runs thick. It is not mine, however. I do not own it; I merely walked amidst it, till it reached up to my neck… and with each wave, inextricable waves, I fought to keep from drinking it in, toxic poison saying I was the problem and that I couldn’t… that I could not… anything.

I am here today though, and I do. Why ever did three little words galvanize the masses? Together we can! Because when the masses have been cast down by the oppression of the powerful who know not love, that they cannot is all that they have believed, but I could, and I do.

I wake at 5. I work. I fight the scripted lies I heard for over a decade, the condescension and belittling, the memories of how I was touched and disregarded, to believe that I matter and am worth even as much as the person I pass on the train, in the hall… the man on Delancey and Clinton with matted hair and a brown sweatshirt who stares aimlessly ahead, hand out for money, undeniably high… juxtaposed a half hour later with one in the three thousand dollar four piece suit because nothing less could satisfy. Beside me, the woman with her baby in her arms selling mango on the subway platform and the woman cleaning the bathroom in a NYC skyscraper, where I retreat multiple times a day to remind myself I can and will be okay- though I know not yet where I will live or how I will pay, and still face accusations of incompetence in a court of law by a man I gave all of myself to and trusted, by a man who said he loved me, and then said that too had been a lie he thought- that he never had after all.

I pick the kids up in the afternoon and breathe into a small machine. BAC .000- I am not surprised. July 4th, 2021 was the last day, of which I thank God… the day he who was my best friend realized perhaps his days were numbered, the day he started planning and plotting? Or was that August or September, when I, the last of his team of worshippers quit his dream. To be his right hand woman meant I accept that which I could not carry, let him practice his arts of exorcism, and hold for him all his self-hate while he fed upon the gifts of mine he swore I did not have. Yet truth be told, it was probably not even then that he did decide… we had more days to go till October when the doctor at Prisma hospital would listen to my story, see the fear in my eyes and hear it in my voice, realize this woman before him, all 110 pounds, bruised and blue, believed leaving would mean forfeiting God and breaking vows which, as he so candidly told me, were broken first by the one who held her down while she cried, and who lied, who let her lie, and in the end, left her to die.

Perhaps it was December, as my family rallied, when I could not think and could barely breathe from the growing realization of what was truth and fiction, or January when he suddenly left, to work on himself, and went radio silent minus the daily emails asking when I was returning with his children, how I intended to support our family now, if I really thought I could make it without him given my mental illness, etc. etc. etc.

Surely it was February, when I had not yet broken under the weight of that which was true, under the weight of figuring out him, who he was. Definitely March, when he hid, ghosting even the children and the calls from my lawyer, only to return on his black horse, in his black BMW as it ended up and the Papa Bear shirt, telling me this was only temporary, and taking the one thing he knew was the one thing which if lost would certainly threaten to put me back where I’d been before I escaped his hand and his scripts about me. “I hope she really does have support here. She’s gonna need it. This might put her over the edge. I hope it doesn’t.”

I could chronicle days, all the hours of even this day, reflect on my growth and his decent, type words I still fear to allow to be true or read, but instead- I’ll prepare for this afternoon when I board a plane with my children to return to the house with the big stairs, where it all went down, a sleepy Southern town in which our family is now known by the local police because of the number of times they had to come to my father’s house in the span of a few short months. There are people who know the truth. I know the truth. God knows the truth. It is all seen and has been, everything I could not, and all that I have done.

This is not the end- merely a 2 week visit to rest in the arms of some who love us, who have carried us through this all whether by prayers or tangible means.

He filed to take the kids!

He threatened me in front of the kids.

He attempted to search my car.

He insulted me again, and again, and again.

He lied to the judge.

He lied to me.

He trashed our home.

He broke my things.

He told my child I never wanted to return to him.

He told my child I was dumb.

He … did so many things I still can’t believe he was capable of doing. I suppose we are alike that way- capable of so much more than I ever knew, at least. Who knows what he knows or truly believes? Who knows who he is? Not me, though I desired to, have desired to, for 15 years.

I am not sure what will happen next… August 12, or 13… March 29th, 2024, in the end of this all or when that will be, but I choose today to be okay with all that I don’t know. One thing I have learned: sometimes not knowing is that which safeguards our strength and allows us the opportunity to see who we really are, who we are not, and all the things we could be if we just. held. on, didn’t give up- challenged the scripts, did the next thing. It will be hard, but the immeasurable worth is as weighty as the potential pain, that I do know. That… I have seen.