October's Artsy Essay

                    

This months Essay topic - Judith HeartSong 'Tell us something: a secret, a wish, a thought  or hope, your greatest desire or temptation, or something unique about you.....'  

I've gone back and forth on what to write, if I wanted to, if I was ready.  I've kept my journal pretty general and haven't gotten to the spot or level where I could write freely about my life, about me, about my 'personal side.'  Not that I didn't want to or that I wanted to keep 'secrets', but I am a private person for the most part.  I'm not the type of person that can just blurt out what are more often than not considered private issues.  Then today a conversation took place at work and a comment, 'I really have a hard time feeling bad for people in that situation as they make their own choices.'  I know it wasn't meant maliciously and the person did go on to qualify it with reasoning I could see, but it did make me think and made me decide I would write about it here, today, for strangers to see.   

Very few people in my real life even know this. I've wondered if it was because I thought people would think less of me, if I was insecure, if people would treat me different, if down deep I thought it was none of their business.  It happened so long ago and after years of confusion and trying to rebuild myself I put it deep inside me as a distant memory, some may call it a secret.    I got married and lived outside Dallas, TX many years ago.  It wasn't a perfect marriage by any stretch but we thought we were in love and were happy.  Things weren't the greatest at first because of the never ending money issues but we always made it, we shared everything and we worked extremely hard to keep things together.  Who needs a million dollars tobe happy?  Just before I found out I was pregnant things began to change.  Distance seemed to be taking hold and with each passing day we talked less and did fewer and fewer things together.  It was like we lived together but we were separate.  When I found out I was pregnant I was scared, extremely scared.  I was thrilled that I had a human inside me, I always wanted tons of kids to nurture, cuddle, take care of.  Have them depend on me as I depended on them.  But knew on the outside my life was slowly falling apart.  How could I bring an innocent child into this world?  When I told him he was happy.  Things seemed to slowly come back to the way they were.  We went to the Dr. appointments together, we giggled and laughed over the sonograms because at first we couldn't make out the picture but told the Dr. we could, we teased over what names would we would pick, and if we wanted to know the sex.  Blissful, right?  The way it should be? Wrong!  

It was all an act, it was like fun loving guy was a character he played and the real man was miserable.  Didn't want to be married, didn't want a family, didn't want anything.  The night I went into labor it took me hours to get him up.  For a while I actually thought if the contractions got any closer I'd be driving myself to the hospital.  I had called the Dr. and he said if contractions get closer to call him and then meet him there otherwise he would see me in his office the next morning.  He did finally get up and sat with me but I could see in his eyes he really didn't care.  At one point I thought maybe he was scared, but looking back I don't think so.  I made it through the night and the next day he took me to the Dr. appointment.  I was in labor but I wasn't really dilated much and under normal circumstances I'd probably be sent home, but my blood pressure had went through the roof and they wanted me admitted.  He got me situated in my room and left. He left me in the hospital to deal with all the emotions on my own, the pain, everything.  I got my support from my Dr. and the nurses.  He arrived back at the hospital hours after I had been in recovery.  He did pass by the nursery but like most new dads it wasn't like he was there for hours, he was home and we were there.  

I should have left then, I should have packed things up and moved on but I honestly wanted to have a Mom and Dad for my son.  I didn't want to give up so 'easy.'  I wanted it to work.  I thought I loved him.  Looking back it must have been lust or fear.  Needless to say I stayed.  I fought for our marriage, our family.  I tried with all my might.  Slowly but surely the non talking became yelling, the sleeping on the couch, the pretending he was asleep anytime I was in the same room with him.  Then he stopped going to work, without even telling me.  I was paying for daycare as he sat home all day!  It didn't take long before the 'gig' was up and then the money issues started.  Scraping and clawing to pay rent, the bills, put food on the table.  Yet it was all my fault!?  I worked full time, took care of a child, the house, and he spent time out at the movies, doing whatever he wanted.  If I brought things up, it would be a scream, a shove, a push, a grab, a slap, never a punch and never did I have a bruise that could be seen but my insides were black and blue and I ached with a pain like none other I had ever felt.   

One day I came home from work, he was laying on the couch with a headset on listening to something from our music collection, my son was screaming in his crib, and the house was a disaster.  I tried to be quiet, 'maybe he had a bad day,' but when he realized I was home the yelling began.  He jumped off the couch and followed me into the babies room.  I picked up my son and comforted him, or at least tried as the yelling about who knows what was going on.  Back in the living room there was a point that he got so close to me as I held my son I felt the fear crawl up my back and all my hair stand on end.  I put my son down on the floor as I felt in my heart that was safest.  I moved away from him so not to be too close and then it happened.  The desk in the corner was lifted and pushed/tossed across the room.  The contents on top went flying across the room, the drawers scattered and the wooden case of the desk landed within inches of the baby.  At that moment I decided I was leaving.  It was not a month later and my son and I were back in NY.  We had our clothes and each other everything else stayed.  I wasn't going to wait and see what would happen next.  

We all make choices but they are not always black and white.  Usually there are circumstances behind them and if you don't know them, if you haven't been there you can't for one minute make an honest decision on what you would do.  There is all kinds of abuse, emotional and physical is what I experienced for years.  It wasn't until much later that I realized what it actually was.  I knew married life was not an easy thing and it took work.  I knew things were wrong, but always made excuses, tried to explain it away.  

The choice I made that day in January long ago was probably the best choice I made ever.  As the years have gone by it's like I was never married.  We have no contact with him.  He has not been a part of my sons life unless he felt the need, and that has been about every 4-5 years or so.  He never gave me child support and when we went to court he quit his job and went into a homeless shelter leaving me with all the bills.  I never tried again, at that point I found out how strong I was and I could do it by myself.  

So there you have it, my secret.....