New Tracks

I’m tired of being tough. And this hermit lifestyle I’ve been living for the past few months isn’t going to work. I’ve got to breathe again. Feel alive again. Feel like a woman again. Someone asked me yesterday how my heart was. Up until this point I thought I was doing pretty well. I was staying tough. I’d had a good cry already. But apparently it’s going to take a bit more to mourn the last seven years of my life, because when someone asked me this, I fell apart. My heart? It’s locked up in a high tower far away, so wounded and brazen that a return to life will take a miracle. What else is a person supposed to do with their heart when it finds itself under daily assault? So I found out that I have a long way to go. Divorce is horrible. Having children in the middle is unbearable. But escaping abuse is unquestionable. I must flee, I must run, I must get free. I was not made to be a punching bag, a dishtowel, despised by the one who had pledged to love me. But here I am. I cannot believe I survived seven years with that man.

Sometimes I feel so guarded that I wonder if I even know what is underneath my skin. Who is this person? This mom who has thrown herself into raising her children and creating a nurturing home for them? My identity has been entirely that of mother. Their needs and desires have directed my life. A mother must navigate the paths of life with the ever present knowledge that her children are following along behind. I married my husband because we had already become parents together and I wanted the nuclear family ideal for my children. That ideal just never included an angry husband, a distracted and selfish father, or divorce.

Now my train has derailed and I must figure out what track I am to follow from this point. Who am I? The world is excitingly opened up and frighteningly intimidating. All of the dreams that he refused to allow me to consider are back on the table. From here I can do anything with my life. Yet I am also now a single mother. The burden of being both caretaker and breadwinner can leave me gasping for air some days. Not that I don’t want to work; I love working. But trying to figure out how to manage it and simultaneously care for my children is confusing.

I am liberated, but my children are only half way there. Growing up I watched Sallie Field in “Not Without My Daughter” and always cried. Now I can relate. How can a woman leave her children behind with her abuser? It is unthinkable. So I have fought. And God has been really fighting for me. Sometime last year I suddenly realized that even if they had to spend some days with him, at least they would have some days of normal sane life with me. They would get out, at least some. They would have an opportunity to see what real love is, what peace and respect and honor look like. If I do not get free, they will not have a chance to be free. So I am walking out, walking to freedom.