Home

I think for those who have been abused...it is hard to find a place where you are comfortable...a place where you belong. Well, at least it has been for me. When I left home I found myself in an unfamiliar world. Granted, I had moved 800 miles away from home to go to college, but this new world offered acceptance and even love at times. It was as if I had landed in some dark corner in Africa and the people who surrounded me spoke a different language and practiced a different culture. I had never been free. I had never been asked what I "wanted". I had never not been responsible for only myself. It was not easy for me to settle down. In fact, I realized that I had never learned how to study. I was never given the time in my mother's house to sit down and do homework. Yet, she still found it odd that I made poor grades. That was often the her reason for beating me. I was stupid and lazy and I would spend my life flipping burgers. No one would marry me because I was a stupid b***h! Now I found myself without that ever present dictator and I had no idea what to do. I failed two classes in my first year of college. Not so ironically, they were both Bible classes. I went back the next year. My new life was better than the one I had left behind. My mother constantly whispered promises of failure and defeat in my ear...but I stayed. Somehow I had come to love freedom even if it ended in failure. I could come and go as I pleased. I had never been allowed to do that...I liked it.

After I was married, those feelings changed. I once again found myself in unfamiliar territory. I knew Evan was in love with me before we were married (obviously). But he always had to go home at the end of the night. He still had his own life and I had my own life both in our own dorm rooms. I don't know for sure but I wonder if I took our having to be apart as a small version of abandonment. Evan never left me and would have been outside my window if I had ever needed him. But every night I had to watch him drive away. It was heart wrenching. I am sure I behaved angrily so that his leaving wouldn't feel so bad. (I still don't have much of a clue as to why he married me!) After we were married and the literal honeymoon was over...I went into an odd depression. I was sad and angry most of the time. I had a very strong desire to go home...back home to Pennsylvania to be with my mother (choke!). I'd even cry myself to sleep most nights and I actually slept with a stuffed pig my mother had given me. I didn't understand what was wrong with me. I couldn't really make sense of anything. Evan was good to me but I was still unhappy. I loved him but I didn't know how to show it. I'd hold his hand as we fell asleep together. It was all that I could think of to show him I loved him and didn't want him to leave. We almost moved back to my hometown the next summer. I wanted to be rid of that college town but I could never feel settled or peaceful about moving back home. We never did.

I know now what was going on. After we were married, I was privy to 24/7 unconditional love and I COULD NOT handle it. Nothing I did would chase this man away. I couldn't put Evan in a box like I had with every other man/boy in my life. Every man or boyfriend in my past had hurt me or left me in some way. Every one of them had betrayed me. Here was this man standing before me who wouldn't move! I felt the need to run. Run where I didn't know, but I had to run. If I went back home...things would have made sense. My mother no longer hit me but her words still cut like a knife. That pain felt good next to the uncertainty I now found myself. I needed familiarity...I needed to live back inside my survival mode because my new life...in my new life I needed none of the old tricks. No one hit me and no one called me names. It almost felt like standing in front of a crowded room completely naked. All my defenses were completely useless. I was in a panic mode scrambling for something to make sense. I think I spent the next three years keeping my head above the water. So close to drowning in a world I couldn't understand. Our marriage was not bullet proof and was suffering. Evan went 75% of the way but I could not and would not meet him the rest of the way. I searched everywhere else for peace but couldn't find it anywhere. The rest was the long road that lead me to where I am sitting right now.

Still I feel a little restless. I don't like the town where we live now. I don't like the house we bought although it was a convenient and practical purchase. This is not my home. I don't feel like I belong here. With every change of the seasons something will remind my of my hometown in Pennsylvania. The smells of spring...that fresh gust of wind that somehow fills me with energy. The smells and sounds of Fall...my favorite time of year...makes my heart beat faster. I can recall Friday nights under the lights of the football field in my color guard uniform. Performing on Alumni Field...I had the time of my life. I remember the comfort that town brought me. I had my own special places to go and hide. My mother hated the place but I ALWAYS loved it. The cold winter days when my nose would freeze the moment I stepped outside. the snow...I loved the snow. Sledding down the steepest hill we could find and then regretting the climb back up. I never learned to ski. I have told Evan that is something I REALLY want to do. I want my children to grow up with snow. I want to be able to pass on the only happy pieces of my childhood onto them. I want to go home. Fall is here again. My heart it tugging to be brought back to the place that always made me happy. I miss is so so so so desperately. I have never been able to express this desperation in Evan's family. It has always been met with "Your family is here and that should make you happy" and things like that. I usually end up feeling guilty for wanting something so much. I feel like pieces are missing. The past is crushed and I want to put some pieces back together. I still have family there. People that have been through a hellish ordeal...couldn't we heal together? I won't sacrifice my children but we could certainly build a life. Who is to say living around Evan's family is so healthy? The people I have to hide this blog from in order to continue to write with freedom. I want to scream to them that it is my turn! I want back what was taken from me. I live in exile down here from a woman who no longer scares me. I am kept from the siblings I love simply because that woman still breathes? Are you kidding me? God knows I don't want to go away from where He will have me. Why then do I have such a longing? Sometimes it hurts to be so far away. I want to go home. God, I don't know.