Charlie Stole the Handle

Somehow snow makes it just a little bit better.  Certainly not the driving or the shoveling or the snow blowing, snow throwing, but the brightness of it is an improvement.  I keep thinking and sometimes saying that it just doesn’t feel like Christmas this year, but the snow puts an upturn on my mood.  The regular DJ for my jazz station was inexplicably absent from the airwaves this morning, and the change to more light hearted, funky, and Christmasy tunes was of help.  The slow traffic and uninterrupted music ease my apprehensions a little.  Knowing that I will not see him (my husband) again until after the Holidays is a definite morale booster, and the possibility of seeing a good friend is downright cheerful. 

He collected his things this weekend under police escort.  I was nice, maybe too nice, but a small part of it is in fact selfish.  I want his clothes, his shoes, his things out of my house.  I want to begin to remove his traces and try to forget what it was like to live in his prison for years, unable to predict accurately if I would meet Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde at the door when I arrived home.  Mostly it was Mr. Hyde, but the brief and infrequent appearances of the good doctor were enough to string me along, give me hope.  Hope is a dangerous thing you see.  It was maybe hope that bound me to this man, my abuser.  I hoped that things would get better, that he would consent to getting help, and that the sham of a married happy ending for which I played my role day in, day out, would someday be a reality.  But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, “if wishes were fishes, my room would stink.”  Now you know that I’m a marvel, full of bad analogies about rotten seafood.

I want to recount for you in specific the things that occurred during my six lost years, but I cannot.  It’s not that it’s too painful – I am just tired of telling the tales.  I can tell them with no chronology picking out the best morsels for you to devour, but I am tired of being fodder for vultures, no matter how caring and concerned these vulture are.  It sounds ridiculous when I write, almost as ridiculous as when I say it.  The questions are numerous, but always the same:  “that really happened, you’re not exaggerating?”  And the answer always the same:  “I wish I was, but these things and worse all happened.”  Then the sad, confused, not sure what to say eyes look at me and in their way say, “it’s a wonder you’re sane at all, much less a scientist with a Ph.D. and publications.”  And my only thought is that I’m a bull, an ox, tramping down the wagon trail with one hoof in front of the other.  My breath locomotive, no way to slow down.