Return to the District of Columbia

I don't know exactly what to think about this weekend. It was exciting, comforting, and lots of fun but also a little confusing and left me with A LOT to think about. It's a crazy thing that I have done so much time in both NY and DC that my life in both places have now started to meld together a bit. NY has always been home base but going back to DC for the first time after leaving was important, dramatic. It made me think long and hard about what I treasure about each city - in different but equally passionate ways. I was reinforced and invigorated by the reflection of the "professional DC woman" that was shown to me all weekend long.

Preying on the Ignorant.. She is SAD

I'm find it extremely difficult to digest this bulls$*t. Watching Hillary on Meet the Press - watching her not explain any of her attacks on Obama, soften her attacks and passive agressively state that she will be ready on day one in the Oval Office, but won't even say that Obama won't be. Instead she says that is for the voters to decide - she trusts the voters- and they use whatever factors are important for them. She makes me sick. It just means wayyy too much for her. She oooozes entitlement and orchestrated behavior and talk. I am no real fan of Obama but am increasingly becoming one when compared to this nonsense.

She is embarrasing! Now she says that her vote TO AUTHORIZE THE WAR was a vote to reinstate inspectors back into Iraq! She slams Obama, meanwhile his position has been consistent and he did not vote for the war. She wants it both ways - she is SO politically motivated it is sick.

She rests her arguements to Tim on lack of context (Tim is not showing her ENTIRE speech on the Senate floor or Bill's ENTIRE campaign speech calling Obama's campaign a "fairy tale") and that he has alot of paper in front of him and is able to quote all sorts of different people- he is "good" at what he does.

Taking the Reins

It's all about the control. About the fact that I booted him out, watched calmly as he packed up his things with the two police officers present and NEVER looked back. Never once did I entertain replying to a text, email, or phone call from him. It's pretty crazy to think about the fact that he has probably been with someone else ever since we broke up (can't be alone) and has been sending me a flood of "I still love you texts" and phone calls without her knowing. Oh how wise and tall I feel.

It is wonderful to be be on my own once again. Not only to be independent, but to not know where my next adventure lies. Who knows what the future holds for me. DC may call me back but for now I am where I am supposed to be.

Despite the antics at this big M, it was all supposed to happen this way - I am convinced. If I hadn't relapsed with N before leaving DC and had my entertainment with El Salvador, Honduras, and Columbia - I wouldn't be thinking the thoughts that I am now, nor had the fabulous experiences that they brought me, er... laughs at least- fun and laughs and lots of creative material!

Black Eye Shame and Flower Shopping

I woke up around 530 this morning because I wasn't feeling well. I have been watching Fox and Friends. It is eerie just how much it reminds me of C. Most of the time that we were together, when we both worked for the Navy, and then when we lived together and both worked at the Pentagon, we watched it religiously with our coffee. He watched it at work at the Pentagon and would email me topics from the show. I feel so free watching it without his presence in my life.

The early months of last summer, that lead up to our final split were miserable for me. Almost worse than when our relationship finally imploded. I knew it had to end but was scared about kicking him out and being alone once again. C gave me a black eye right after Easter. I was mortified, depressed, and flailing. I cried every time I looked at my sad reflection. And was SO angry with myself that I didn't kick him out then. Instead we went flower shopping the next day. I let him quietly sneak back in to an everyday routine. We wandered separately around the garden departments of Walmart and Lowe's. I felt the heat of my darkened and swollen eye. I had tried to conceal the blackness with a dense, MAC green shadow that I have not used since. Fern. I wince when I see it. I had so much rage in me that it was difficult to look at him that day. I kept thinking, "Now he really knows he has me - now he knows that I will never leave him, that he is free to cheat, lie, and continue physical abuse. How do I live with myself?? I am flower shopping with him the day after he gave me a black eye!!" It was so absurd that I almost vomited the entire day. Instead I was quietly bubbling with rage at his very appearance. I spontaneously cried all day. I ducked in and out of aisles between petunias and tulips not wanting him to see my breakdowns.

Later that day I googled abusive terms online and found an eerily familiar list of traits belonging to the abusive personality. That is when I knew that I had to get out, no matter how ugly and difficult it would be. I was desperate for him to leave me.

After the last police intervention in June and it was finally over, I was afraid that everyone would ask me the question that I had been asking myself repeatedly, "Why would I stay with him given the earlier incidents and his abusive personality?" How could I let it happen? Stay so long? The only person who asked me that was N. He could not fathom that I was with him for 2 years. I wish I had expressed my disbelief to him at how long he has been living in a loveless marriage. I did not because I felt that in his own screwy, tactless way he was so horrified by my pain and concerned for my well being that he was in disbelief at my "tolerance."

The abuse was a blessing in disguise for me. Truly. Finding out what I knew and feared all along, that he had been cheating on me and then having him unleash violence on me when I caught him was the best thing that could have happened. I am in NY. That is what I had wanted for awhile but wasn't sure how to do it and would never have walked away from the Pentagon without a serious reason. I am so glad now, that I had one. I would never have met Columbia or Honduras. It's funny to think about how such a horrendous time in my life gave me new people to be with, and new friends to confide in.

Overcoming But Not Forgetting My Beatings

I am committed to making sure that I do not forget the brutality of why I left DC. It is pretty much summed up by the following:

June 25, 2007- I will never, ever forget his rage.

As soon as he saw how much blood there was he freaked. Like when he blackened my eye a few months earlier, he became obsessed with cleaning me up and applying ice to my face. I was in so much pain and so completely crazed that I screamed at the top of my lungs for him not to touch me with my grandmother's old washcloth. I loved that pattern because it is covered with roses. He kept coming at me insisting on cleaning the blood from my face and body. I have a vague recollection of going ape and then telling him that he was an abuser, just like his father and that he can't beat me and then fix it two seconds later with a damp washcloth. This flung him into an even deeper rage that still gives me chills when I think about it. He pushed me to the ground. He then proceeded to kick me in the face and head while yelling, "You want abuse, I'll give you abuse!!"

I only recall parts of the remaining events - hysterical crying and disbelief that he was literally kicking me in the head when I was laying on the ground; the head with the nose that he had broken minutes earlier. He wrestled the scissors from my hand earlier and I had no fight left in me. But he was enraged at how hard I had fought back and let me have it. The nothingness that filled my body when he cracked my head down for the last time stays with me, it's behind my usually friendly and inquisitive eyes. And it is the reason that I jumped so heartily on the Latin connection these past few months.


This is the scene that I want fresh in my mind whenever I see his "Happy Birthday!," or "I still love you" text messages...

Bad Girls Come and Good Girls Go

Preoccupation with the electra complex as it relates to my poor choices in men. I have been knee deep in understanding why I have made the choices that I have and, more importantly, making the changes necessary to avoid future lapses.

The recent Latin brigade has been nothing if not entertaining. It has brought me back to my Syracuse days of conducting my freshman ethnography. I chose the coffee shop on Marshall Street (don't even remember it's name despite all of the time I spent there). I spent many an afternoon overcaffeinating myself and spying on several familiar faces from the philosophy and poetry graduate departments. My critical observations on genre-specific words and references related to studies of Kant and Carolyn Forche mirror my recent "tour" of Latin America. I just replaced noteworthy philosophers and poets with shared treatment of bedded women, cultural gender roles, and a certain exclusive swagger. I visited El Salvador, Honduras, Columbia, (and Honduras again)- noting the commonalities between each in different areas.

Conclusions abound that I am too much woman for all - was told by all 3 amazingly enough (Honduras was exceptionally stubborn but 'fessed up through his actions). I was the last one to see just how right they were. I was slumming my way through the worst "neighborhoods" so to speak, and clung to each one at some point when the journey was ending, despite knowing I should never have been there in the first place. Loneliness and the desire to forget the last disaster/adventure can really do some damage.

I have officially stopped the madness with the these guys that have served as my re- introduction to NY over the past 4 months. Yesterday was Day One of Ending the Bullshit and not caring about collateral affects - only getting back to the top of MY game.