to the woman who has given me too much grace
You and I have been in this for far too long… and we do deserve rest.
But now I will sit here for a little while and write some more things unwritten, always hoping for rest, though I know closure may be too much for you or I to ever ask for.
I think back to the first moment I ever met you. I wrote a private blog to my friend Alexis about it, because it was significant to me. I go back and read those entries, and I see an innocence. I was a bright-eyed 23 year old lit up by a community of beautiful women speaking of empowerment and connecting with spirit. That was all I had longed for, to be held in that kind of space. I was stoked that I was experiencing it.
September 17th, 2016
“This is ____ & ____.They are very inspiring women and I went to their goddess drum circle. You should come sometime. There’s such a feeling of oneness and peace and it’s like every time I walk into their spaces I’m home.
Plus there’s drumming and dancing so that’s so much fun.
I’m really just grateful for the spiritual family I’m building because they seriously are the sweetest, most genuine, most caring and creative people I’ve ever known.”
I stood in that first drum circle opening my heart, with you and others opening theirs. The dancing and drumming and inspiring words from you and many others brought such joy to my life.
At that time I was a girl who didn’t have an identity of my own. I was young, constantly searching for it. And a woman there asked me if I was open to being in that class with him. I said yes. And that was when what I call “the blurring” began.
It was that September of 2016 I showed up to the class, and just a few minutes later I met him face to face for the first time when he walked in.
“Why are you sitting over on the corner of the couch acting like you’re scared of me? I don’t bite.” He joked. I analyzed him from head to toe, noticing his stupid jeans and flip flops. Most of the women in my family had been married 2 or more times to different abusive men. (I was already on your side.)
“We’re not going to be friends. I’m a lesbian.” I rolled my eyes at him purposefully. He immediately took it as a challenge.
“Just because you said that, you’re going to be my lesbian best friend.” He shot back wittingly, and well, that was that.
What followed was me learning seemingly every little thing about you - through his lens. He talked about you for hours on end, sober or not. And everyone was on the train for getting you both back together, so I was going to be the one who helped him heal, too. Poor little man baby, I can help him see what he’s doing wrong. I thought to myself in those early stages. He validated me as someone who knew more about emotions and women than him. I accepted his praises. I became a place for him to emotionally dump. He soon had me completely controlled by him and his needs, even though I was just his lesbian best friend.
From that time, I know more about you than I probably should know. It’s really strange, and I’m not proud of it. I feel like it’s often why I’m so awkward around you. There’s a part of me who just met you at a drum circle a couple times, and a part of me who sat and listened to hours of intricate details of your life told by another person, and I don’t even know if most of it was true. And, I mean, it’s probably not much different than him sharing about you with any of the other women he was with, but to be the one there during that fallout with you and him… I have to say I did absorb a lot.
You were gone, he needed someone with him all the time to fill that void. (Not only me, but other women as well) And I soon did feel completely buried by it. Emotionally, as it somehow became my duty to show up for him in that way. But also, physically. Much like in the middle of that circle of those people at the training retreat. He buried me there in the sand so I couldn’t get out and go join everyone. Since I couldn’t move, I stayed there and played your drum. (Well…was it your drum? I question everything from that time period now.)
Nobody came to dig me out when that happened, everybody just laughed at the fact that I couldn’t get out of the situation. It was meant to be lighthearted and hilarious, sure, but that moment weirds me out when I think about it now.
It was somewhat foreshadowing that I would, at times, be physically frozen in this fight with him, with only the beats of your drum to soothe me.
I ask myself: was he so comfortable assaulting me because of the alcohol? Was it because he was confident I would be too scared to say anything to anyone because he was controlling the narrative? Was it because he saw me as a challenge and had to win the ‘special prize’ of fucking the girl who didn’t want a man to fuck her?
And I just think to myself that there is no chance in hell I would have stayed quiet about my assaults if a random straight man off the street had just assaulted me out of the blue. (Which, by the way, that is what most everyone tells you to be afraid of when you’re 23.)
I almost wish that it would have happened to me that way instead.
And most people were not warning me of the charming 35-40 year old “Hero” man friend that everyone was giving so many chances to! But you wanna know something absolutely incredible? You were trying to.
You know this, so I don’t know why I type it all out like it needs to be seen or understood by you. You lived it. You saw it. You know. I’m just saying, “yes, I’ve gone deep into this, too, to understand how it happened.”
And it’s the simple story of how I ended up with more trauma than I knew what to do with, and here we are now, years later, still unraveling the psychological abuse. And, for me, the sexual abuse.
You question why I keep telling you I’m sorry when I did nothing to you, and you say I have nothing to be sorry for, and ultimately I know that. But if that’s true then I fear it dehumanizes you and what you deserve as who I first saw you as, standing in front of all of those people at a difficult time in your life, telling your stories.
Both can be true, you know? I can be 23 and not be completely responsible for figuring it all out and taking the right action when I was young and naive and traumatized. And you can also be someone who needed someone standing next to you acknowledging the truth about him while you fought for your life and reputation. In that way, I am still sorry. Even if it wasn’t me who could have been standing next to you.
It’s really neither of our faults, I know. He is the perpetrator. He caused us and many others harm. We just both experienced it, and learned from it, and spoke up about it at different times. I expect there may never be a perfect way to manage it.
And yes, maybe I shouldn’t have written this so boldly and direct, but it’s on my heart so deeply today. So many of my words about this situation go unposted or unshared out of fear.
I feel I am a plague on your life at times, as much as I am a blessing. And now I am leaving once again as I did before. After I do what I need to.
I just don’t know when to say goodbye to you, if ever.
Just know that wherever and whenever I go, I stand with you.
I take accountability for trusting the wrong people at a delicate time in my life…
We survived this shit show separately, together.
And I will spend the rest of my life advocating for and educating others on the signs of violence and psychological manipulation in people and relationships, because I lived it. That’s a gift all of this has given me.
“Do I live in fear of my power for the rest of my life?
I can feel it in the beat of the butterfly drum.
I can see it in the twinkle of the woman with bright eyes.
I can hear it in the sound of the feisty goddess’ voice…”
And after nearly 10 years, yes. I’ve finally come to know it in me.
