Begin Again
It took me ten years, six months, and seven days to divorce the man I married at age thirty and had two children with. He played nice for the first three years. At least that is what I thought at the time.
I was gaslit, lied to, yelled at, loomed over, threatened, pushed, pulled out a car window, stalked and terrorized, cheated on, guilted and blamed. And literally shat on in one of his drunken stupors.
I found out he dropped my computer down cement stairs on purpose, not as originally explained as a so called “accident” when he tripped. I was writing a book and the break destroyed the hard drive. I had to start over.
He destroyed thousands of photographs and negatives, a life’s work created before he was ever in the picture. He went to jail when my new security cameras caught him lurking around my house for hours, two nights in a row, then finding and destroying the cameras.
It took me years to understand the myriad ways abuse is wielded and manifested. How the abused become more and more groomed to acquiece, to submit, to even participate in a self-flaggalating way to torture themselves in anticipation of the constantly about to drop shoe or insult or fist.
I got out of that marriage to work on creating a loving, robust, and fulfilling new life for myself. But I, and millions of others who have experienced the deja vu of abusive relationships, have not been able to escape Trump and the near hourly barrage of mania, narcissism, lies, obfuscation, self-aggrandization, threats, misogyny, and bullying. His calls to incite violence and support white supremacy, in tweets that tally hundreds a week, feel like death by a thousand cuts.
We survivors have suffered at a macro level, this sickness spewed from the highest office of our country’s government. And while it has made us ill, we persevered and fought back and we tried our best to take care of ourselves.
Four years ago some of us walked around in a daze, shocked. Some cried. We marched. We vowed never again would this happen under our watch and we’d work for our people and the planet’s collective safety. We have grown so tired over these years. How long must we toil through the exhaustion?
Today as the votes come in, we will try to breathe. We will pray, meditate, dance, give our offerings to our gods, raise our voices in heartfelt, desperate plea to be released from this abusive and destructive relationship that we did not agree to. We want the country to grant our divorce and for the jury to send this abuser to prison for his crimes against our people.
And for those in a place where you are not being personally affected by the situation, think about what you can do to support the safety and well-being of other people. I believe in the interconnectedness of all living beings. What we do to others is ultimately what we do to ourselves.
Love big. Love beyond borders. Let the light in you see and touch the light that exists in another.
We will start over. Let’s begin again to build a beautiful, welcoming, inclusive, caring world.