Leaving the Tower

Two weeks ago I attended my first class at The Ohio State University. Since I was accepted people have been asking me how I intend to handle the workload.

“When are you going to do homework?”
“Who’s going to watch Theo?”
“You’re just going to go part-time, right?!”
“Wow. I can’t even imagine being in school and having a baby.”

“Oh my goodness! I hadn’t thought about all those difficult hurdles I’d have to jump! Never mind, I give up. My love of academics and dreams of higher education aren’t worth the hassle.” This is how I always wanted to respond. Of course it’s going to be a pain sometimes. Yes, it will be a helluva lot of work. But I made a choice to reapply to school and continue pursuing my goals. I was nervous about all of those things. How will Theo fare without me? How will I be able to keep up in my classes when I’m a full-time mom?

        But the thing I laid awake at night worrying about most—was the walk. The walk from my car to my classes. For me, there is nothing more frightening than being alone, out in the world, in transit. Anything could happen. That is when I feel the most vulnerable. When I’m in my car I can lock the doors—I’m good. Once I’m in my classroom, I can settle into my seat, position my back to the wall and have everyone in my sight. But when I’m walking alone, I can’t see everyone. My hearing has become impeccable. I hear footsteps coming from over a block away. I can almost always tell from the sound of a footstep whether it’s a man or woman behind me.

        One of my least favorite consequences of being a survivor of a stranger rape, is the way it has affected how I see people. Every man I see is a threat. Everyone else around me are witnesses. The more people around, the more threats—but also the more witnesses. I can’t win. I commute to school four days a week and I park in a neighborhood just off campus. It’s about a mile walk to my first class. Gabriel, Theo and I went a few days before school started and did a test run of where I should park and how I could walk to class. It took 20 minutes. I typically do the walk in 11 minutes now. I’m practically running.

        For a year and a half the world was too scary to be in. Too dangerous to take walks alone. Too dangerous to ride public transportation. Too dangerous. I am a survivor of what is called a Blitz Sexual Assault. A random stranger violently and suddenly attacked me, and for nearly two years I organized my life around avoiding situations where that could happen again. It took months for me to even drive a car alone.

        Gabriel and I were recently listening to a sermon and the pastor was talking about “weathering hard seasons.” That’s Christainese for going through bad shit. He was telling a story about how he was terrified of flying, so by the time he was 39 he had only flown one time. He realized that by avoiding his fear he wasn’t eliminating it, he was just neatly bending his life to the will of his fear. He did not travel because his fear kept him from planes. I did not independently interact with the world outside of my home because my fear told me I would be hurt—like I once was. By staying inside, I was not handling my fear—my fear was handling me.

        Two times a day, four times a week I embark on that excruciating walk. I keep my hands out of my pockets and I hold my keys threateningly between my fingers, in case I need to fight back. My eyes are wide and my ears are alert and you better believe I know exactly how close I am to the people around me—and I could probably tell you the color of their jacket, jeans and shoes. I’m hyperaware. And I often call Gabriel, he puts me on speaker and I sing to Theo.

        I have to do this. I have to leave my self-constructed padded prison. I have to go to school. I love school. I have dreams that are bigger than locking myself away in my tall ivory tower of fear and safely throwing away the key. This world is a scary place. It’s not as beautiful to me as it once was. But I still have a place in it. My voice will be heard in classrooms. I will not be kept silent—trembling and alone—because my fear tells me that’s the safer option. Today I’m choosing the greater risk. Today I am no longer listening to fear.

So if you see a short (newly dyed) red head, sweating profusely, hightailing it across campus, glaring at anyone who crosses her path whilst singing “Mommy loves you, yes I do” into her phone…that would be me. Beware—if you startle me, I might hit you with my keys.