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.

The New Year

        Every morning when Theo wakes up—usually around six thirty—Gabriel gets up and changes his diaper. I turn down the monitor so I don’t hear the crying (my child hates getting his diaper changed), and I desperately hope for a miraculous two more hours of sleep. I’m grumpy in the morning. The only difference between a Bulldog and me in the morning is pajama pants—unless of course the Bulldog is wearing pajama pants, then we are one and the same. Gabriel sets Theo down next to me in bed and then promptly crawls back under the covers. He swears he’s not going back to sleep, but I don’t believe him. Theo giggles and pinches and crawls all over me. Pulls my hair. Sticks his fingers in my mouth. All the while I’m attempting to side nurse my sweet child back to sleep. I’m grumpy, but optimistic in the morning.

        His new favorite thing to do is slap my face repeatedly while nursing. I don’t know why, but for Theo slapping me in the face while nursing is a total gas. I silently endure. This morning started out like any other. Theo woke up. I groaned and turned down the monitor. I had been up only 45 minutes earlier nursing him in his room. Gabriel went to change his diaper. I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes. Angry, resentful, tired thoughts swarmed my brain. Gabriel doesn’t have to wake up at all hours of the night to nurse him. And he gets to sleep again while the kid attacks my face. Other mothers get to sleep until at least seven!

I heard the bedroom door creak and I peeked one eye open to meet my early morning fate. The second Theo laid eyes on me he let out a high pitched giggle and threw his head back as if he had just heard the best news of his life. He leaned forward, reached his arms toward me, and his raspy little voice called, “Mama! Mamamamammamama!”

My heart lifted toward heaven and a smile lit my face as my boy nestled into my arms. My smile surprised me. Not only because it is rare for me to smile before coffee, but I don’t think I have felt that light, or free in months.

     The year 2014 has been a heavy, important, messy, glorious year. Theodore Eldon Duane came screaming into the world and has been filling it with laughter ever since. Gabriel and I moved for the third time and we still haven’t settled on the best place to store our KitchenAid. We’ve had a hard time staying married, yet I have a hard time envisioning life without Gabriel. The truth is, we would be fine on our own, and fine together—that’s just how life is. But we’ve chosen to do this together, and that’s how marriage is, I guess.

Nothing has gone as planned this year—and I have the scars to prove it—but life has grown deeper. Countless times a day I look at my son and nearly stumble with the fearful, incredible realization that this beautiful little human is my own. I applied for college—for the unexpected second time—and was accepted. I reenter the world outside my home on January 12, 2015—my first day at The Ohio State University. I can’t even imagine the trials and excitement it will bring. It’s been a long time since anyone routinely expected me to shower and brush my teeth.

Last year Gabriel and I hailed in the New Year with sparkling juice, lots of candy in bed and my growing pregnant belly between us. This year will be much the same; but with cheap champagne, frozen pizza, and just my stretch marks between us. But we are vastly different people. We no longer fearfully clutch each other, hiding from the evil world that has beaten and ravaged us. This year we’re a little wiser, a lot angrier, and moving forward. We might still be afraid, but we’re moving forward.

This morning as I silently fed Theo his breakfast, Gabriel looked at me over his coffee and said, “Aren’t you tired of living like this?” He didn’t mention anything specific, but I knew what he meant.
“Yes.” I replied.
“Me too.”

This year I will have goals. I know you’re supposed to list your goals and resolutions on New Year’s Eve, but I’m not there yet. I just want some direction instead of living my life in reaction. I know going back to school will change my circumstances, but I want to change. I want to be less angry, and more full of grace. I want to listen more and numb less. For now, my biggest goal of 2015 is to experience mornings with my son in a new way. Today was a little glimpse into what that could be. I want to see the beginning of my days differently. The rest will follow.

        And my doctor says I should drink more water.

The First Year is the Hardest

Gabriel and I used to argue about whether the first or the seventh year of marriage was the hardest. Gabriel said it was the first. I argued that it was of course the seventh. I thought the logic was that people get bored in their relationship—the magic has worn off and they suddenly wake up and their marriage isn’t what they wanted it to be. Now we don’t argue about it. I just hope and pray that Gabriel is right and the first year is the hardest, because this year was hard.

Gabriel and I lived together before we were married so it wasn’t the initial shock of odd bathroom habits, or lack of housekeeping regimes that was difficult for us. Gabriel already knew that I cannot help but collect an insane amount of dishes in our bedroom (I like to eat in bed—sue me). And I knew that when Gabriel has a cold he carries around a roll of toilet paper, blows his nose and leaves a trail of tissues. We’re disgusting. We were prepared for that. I was not prepared for the slow, brutal reveal.

Gabriel and I have always had an extremely shared life. Even when we were in the early dating stages we over shared our hearts out. We talked about our childhoods, our embarrassments, our deepest fears and dreams. We knew each other. Or so we thought. I now think of marriage as the big unveiling. All of our selfishness, anger and hidden darkness has slowly been seeping through and it has not been pretty.

We have uttered phrases such as, “You never used to feel that way!”, and “I never knew!” And many icy, judgmental stares have been cast between us. Our therapist nods and insists this is a good thing.

“Most people live for 10, 15 even 20 years in ignorance and denial of their true selves. You’re hitting your midlife crisis early, which just allows you to embrace reality that much sooner!”

I almost don’t buy it. I want to fully accept Gabriel. I want to allow him to be his broken self, just as I want to be fully loved despite of all of my junk. But I’m also a little annoyed that I didn’t get my 10 years of blissful ignorance. I sometimes wish we still had our darkest closets closed and unmentioned so we could enjoy a few years of happily ever after, before we woke up and realized it was all a myth. I desperately wish I was one of those magical women who could bounce back from disappointments, or “surprise changes” as they might optimistically call them. But I am not. I flounder. I wiggle and flail and throw a fit as I try to super glue back the broken pieces of my expectations.

But maybe expectations are shitty ways of controlling and manipulating people.

Our counselor gave me this quote from Jean Vanier to mull over:

Happiness is accepting and choosing life, not just submitting grudgingly to it. It comes when we choose to be who we are…choosing life as it is, with all its joys, pains and conflicts. Happiness is living and seeking the truth, together with others in community… One of the great difficulties of community life is that we sometimes force people to be what they are not: we stick an ideal image on them to which they are obliged to conform… If they don’t manage to live up to that image or ideal, then they become afraid they won’t be loved or that they will disappoint others. So they feel obliged to hide behind a mask.

In any case, community is not about perfect people. It is about people who bonded to each other, each of whom is a mixture of good and bad, darkness and light, love and hate. But there can only be growth if we recognize the potential, and this will never unfold if we prevent people from discovering and accepting themselves as they are, with their gifts and wounds.

There’s a lot that Jean Vanier has to say that I do not like. I do not like that everyone has a right to their own darkness. Not okay. I want Gabriel to be loving and selfless and a servant to God and ME at all times. Period. And he wants me to be available, kind and giving every second of every day. It ain’t gonna happen. We are selfish people stumbling through the life we’ve quickly slapped together.

Thank God we have people around us to validate how hard marriage can be. Thank God somebody said to me, “It’s okay that it sucks today. You can be angry. But it doesn’t mean everything is ruined.” We are learning to find humor in the small things and to pray more and have patience with the big things.

Today Gabriel and I were going to go on a run. We got dressed. Got Theo dressed. Wrangled the dog into her leash and gathered the stroller, a blanket, a sippy cup, my phone and the keys…it was a production. As we were walking out the door Gabriel said, “Hold on one second.” And ran back into the house, grabbed a broom and started sweeping the front porch. I stared at him with my mouth wide open. He knew our messy porch had been bothering me for weeks.

“Babe. You do exactly the right thing, at exactly the wrong time. It’s an art. I love you.” And I went back in the house and read Carry On Warrior by Glennon Melton Doyle until he was finished. Then we went on our run.

We’re learning to wait for each other. Gabriel is practicing being truly honest and hearing me. I’m striving for more grace and less bitterness. We both need more of God. It’s a mess, but it’s okay and tomorrow might look less messy.

Here’s to 50 more messy years, babe.

Finally Moving In

“I have a lot of confidence in our marriage, because we both have a really high tolerance for crap.” —Gabriel.

Gabriel and I have honed the skill of surviving together through painful life seasons. We are good at it. We can talk fairly openly about our pain. And we can comfort one another well. We have developed some successful, albeit slightly unhealthy, coping mechanisms. What we are not so good at, is thriving. We have learned how to tread water when the boat collapses, but we haven’t quite figured out how to make it back to shore. Gabriel is angry. I am sad. We both feel cheated, stuck. I fear the impending threat of bitterness if we don’t figure out how to move forward.

We’ve recently been given the opportunity to move back to Chicago. A dear friend has a connection to a beautiful apartment in a decent area of the city and the rent is cheap. We’ve stuttered about pros and cons for weeks. We’ve prayed, talked to family and journaled our hearts out, trying to decide if our family should move back to the city we once loved. My anxiety about this decision has slowly grown, and my nightmares are returning. I’ve started to feel unsafe in my own home again, battling with unfounded and unreasonable fear. One night when Gabriel was working late and Theo was already asleep, I locked myself in our bedroom and prayed that Theo would stay asleep because I was afraid to walk down the hallway alone. I do not handle major decision making well.

The more we talk and pray the more I realize how very little difference Chicago would make in our lives. Yes—a move is a big deal—especially this move, but the way we live is isolated and controlled.

       My one deep and real connection here is with my sister, Becca. She is seven months pregnant and about to take six weeks off work to be home with her sweet baby. She lives a mere three minute walk from our house. For the first time in our lives, Becca and I will be in the same place, doing the same thing, with ample time for one another. When will this beautiful and unique opportunity present itself again?

       But we have lived in Columbus for seven months and we haven’t invested in our neighbors or our church. We haven’t established any Columbus centered habits. We have no favorite hangout spots or friends we regularly meet for coffee. We could pick up and move our little family of three to an entirely new city and our daily lives would hardly change.

       I don’t want to live that way.

       I want to feel connected. I want to have roots. I want to be invested in the lives of others and know people who know me. I want to have a relationship with the city I live in—places I know and places that know me. Am I ready for that in Chicago—the city with so many ghosts, temptations, opportunities and demons? I don’t know. How could I be if I haven’t fully embraced Columbus yet? Our hearts are still in protection mode. It’s time to fully move into our life—hearts and minds—and commit. We’ve lived in Chicago, Nashville and now Columbus and committing to our surroundings is something we’ve never tried.

       I feel vulnerable and silly trying to move outside the safety of our small circle of family relationships. I have spent over a year intentionally cutting myself off because I couldn’t bear the responsibility of other people’s lives. My own life was overwhelming enough. Now when I find myself in social situations, I freeze. I’m not up-to-date on any current affairs. It’s not cool to overshare depressing details about your life with casual acquaintances. My sister’s have always teased me saying, “You never had an awkward stage, you lucky duck!” Well, now is my awkward stage. My roommate had friends over for dinner and I mentioned my blog.
       “Oh cool! What do you blog about?”
       “Oh, just life after being raped.”
       Silence.

       A good friend from high school and I were catching up over lunch.
       “The documentary was about that big cruise ship sinking in Italy.”
       “What?! When did that happen?!”
       “Um. Nearly a year ago. You’re pretty behind, girl.”

       This is my awkward stage. All I do is hang out in yoga pants with my baby, or eat string cheese and watch Parks and Rec with my husband. Occasionally we go to the mall and walk around. Occasionally. How can I feel confident in my decision about where to live, when I’ve lived here for seven months and never took the necessary steps to feel at home? In an effort to feel more connected to our physical space, Gabriel and I—in a fit of inspiration—rearranged our entire first floor. We made the sitting area cozier, the dining area more intentional and we put a couch in the kitchen—we’ll see how that works out.

       Gabriel and I have decided that even though we are experts at putting up with the crappiness of life, we don’t want to do that anymore. We want to enjoy the richness of life and be grateful. I want to stop yearning for me carefree college days and fully embrace the beauty and mess of being a mom. I want to be brave enough to invite a new friend over for coffee, even when I have nothing but my awkward self to offer her. I want my son to grow up with parents who know how to care and invest in the community around them. I’m still not sure how to connect while I’m trying to wrap my arms around this new identity, but I have to try. I can’t confidently decide where to live until I’m able to fully live where I am.  Sink or swim, it’s time to commit. Seven months later, and we’re finally moving in.

Big, Bad, Ugly and Kind of Precious

One year ago today, Gabriel and I solemnly flew with my father from Chicago to Baltimore where all of my sisters had gathered to meet us.

One year ago I found out that I was going to be a mother and Gabriel was going to be a father.

One year ago I was attacked at a bus stop, dragged to a near by gangway and raped.

I felt the anniversary of that day approaching for weeks. I didn’t know how I would feel, or what I would think.  Gabriel’s alarm went off at 4:15 this morning, much like mine had a year before. He had to work today at 5 a.m. My morning commute a year ago started at 5 a.m.

       I lay in bed this morning, listening to Theo’s soft sleep sighs as I feed him in the same grey morning light that washed over my morning 365 days ago. The details of that morning will forever be carved deeply into me. I’m still wondering how to move forward.

I’ve been told it takes about a year after being raped by a stranger to feel normal again, or at least to settle into a new normal. I assumed I would be “better” in a year—whatever that would look like. And I’m so tempted to tie a pretty bow on this year and explain how everything worked out for the best in the end, and I’m actually a much better person now and I couldn’t be happier…but, I can’t say that. This was a year marred by destruction. I lost myself. Sure, I can go out and run errands alone now without a full-fledged panic attack—but I still sleep with the light on.

The night before I was raped, Gabriel told me he wanted to marry me. We talked about our first dance song and he sang me to sleep that night. October 4, 2013, we had the most beautiful wedding ceremony, danced the whole night, and he became my safe place. We are in couples counseling now because when two selfish individuals get married—while one is suffering from PTSD—there is extreme codependent fall out. If I feel let down by Gabriel—which I inevitably will because he’s human—I find myself crying in bed for my mommy and disassociating for days.

Our son was born on April 2, 2014, by an emergency cesarean after several days of hard labor. I didn’t get the peaceful home birth I had hoped for, and I was sick for months afterward. I took my very last antibiotic pill just this morning. But April 2, 2014, is still the best day of my life. I wish I could extract it from this horrible year and place it somewhere else so it could shine on it’s own. But, I can’t. My son has seen me cry more times than I can count and he always stares at my crumpled face with his serious little brow furrowed. I desperately wish Gabriel and I could have found out I was pregnant together, and I wish Theodore had more stable, and less melancholy parents. But being his mother has been the greatest joy and deepest fulfillment I have been given. He is a gift from God.

Gabriel texted me this morning on his break saying, “It’s been a big, bad, ugly and kind of precious year. And we got through.” And we did. Even though the light is still on every night; even though my personal sense of security is unhealthily tied up in Gabriel’s actions; even though I still feel lost and undefined—we got through. It has been a destructive year, and we haven’t recovered. But it has been a precious year, and we have fought through the waves to build our small little family. It’s a mess and I still haven’t let go of who I thought I should be. Maybe if I can do that, this next year will be less full of struggle and disappointment, and I can move forward into a new normal and find myself again.

Mother Shame

There is nothing that brings me more joy and more shame, than being a mother.  For nearly a year I’ve been indulgently angry at my circumstances. I’ve selfishly raised my fist to the heavens and blamed everyone but myself for my troubles. Rape survivors are never to blame. I am not even minorly at fault for being raped—true. But I am not a spotless little lamb, tossed about by life’s rough hand either.

Surviving trauma, particularly sexual trauma, severely warped my perspective. When I was in the hospital after being raped, I couldn’t accurately read the facial expressions of the doctors, nurses and police officers around me. For weeks it took me a second to correctly assess the emotions of people around me—especially men. At first glance, everyone looked angry, like they were going to hurt me. I was wrong. My mind didn’t understand things the way it should. That PTSD symptom has faded, but I still cannot accurately see myself.

Being raped made me feel indescribably dirty. It has made me feel deeply afraid, angry and weak. But I can almost always rationalize myself out of the deepest clutches of self-loathing, by reminding myself that I did nothing wrong. It wasn’t my fault. I was a good person that was unjustly wrecked by someone else.  

But a different shade of shame has started to color my heart. A shame that can only come from personal shortcomings. A mother shame.

Maybe I’m the only one, but I feel completely overjoyed and simultaneously horrified that this perfect little human is in my care. My care. It seems like a sick joke that somebody trusted me with his sweet little life. Somebody goofed. My very bones ache to be everything he needs. I long to perfectly care for him, love him and protect him every second of every day—but I don’t. I am not even close. That shame is paralyzing. Nothing can break my spirit more than a mother mistake. I put him to sleep, go downstairs and forget to turn the monitor on? His late discovered cries rip through my heart.

He’s not even three months old and I’ve made more stupid, silly, outstanding mistakes than I ever thought possible. The shame started creeping in slowly and then sucker punched me in the stomach this weekend. My poor husband has had to live with zombie, sad Emily for days. I have been so deliciously bitter toward my rapist. I wallowed and seethed at circumstance. I could even blissfully blame Gabriel or family for some hardships. I was purposefully outward focused, but caring for Theodore has painfully flipped the mirror back at me, and it is a nightmare. I used to believe I was a pleasantly self-reflective person. I knew myself well. How naïve! I didn’t realize how short I fell until staring into the perfectly innocent eyes of my son.

I don’t mean to be self-deprecating in hopes of raking in compliments. (Seriously—if you only knew.) I’m simply aware for the first time how truly ugly some parts of me are. I will not go so far as to say everything about me is ugly, even if it feels that way. I know there are some redemptive elements of my person hidden in the garbage. I’m hoping God will use this new awareness to rid me of some selfishness. I don’t want to get swallowed up by this shame either. I know that is toxic. But it’s here. I’m wading through it, desperately praying to land in a place with more grace. I adore my son. I wish I could be better for him. Only by God’s grace will I ever be able to be the mom he needs.

Photo Credit: http: Rachel Joy Baransi

Cigarettes

I want to smoke.

When Gabriel and I lived in Chicago we smoked cigarettes at an alarming rate, and we felt very cool. I would sit on our front stoop and chain smoke as I wrote poems, read plays and drank coffee. It was very romantic, very mysterious and artistic. We met our fun Irish neighbors while sitting out front smoking. One of our roommates also smoked, and it became our own “watering hole.” We’d gather on the front steps, light cigarettes, and talk for hours. I knew it was horrible for my health, but I didn’t feel it. I felt untouchable. I felt high and important and strong. Those feelings were ripped right out of my chest on July 8, 2013. Instead of feeling high and mighty, I felt an all consuming smallness. Weakness replaced my confidence.

Gabriel quit smoking that day as well, in solidarity. Pregnant women aren’t supposed to smoke, and I didn’t feel very cool anymore. After Theo was born a new fire was lit in my chest. I was starting to look like my old self again. I would pass by a mirror and double take—surprised not to see the huge belly, swollen face and frankly appalling lack of self care. Having Theodore made me feel a bit more independent and I was aching for more. So, Gabriel and I started smoking again—just every so often at first, and only at night after Theo was asleep. We wanted adult time, just the two of us. It was a space free of spit up, diaper changes and shushing. We could talk freely and laugh like we used to.

But putting the cigarette to my lips didn’t feel the same. It didn’t sit right with Gabriel anymore either.

“I feel irresponsible now,” he said, “Before I didn’t care about my body. Theodore makes me want to care.”

I didn’t quite feel the same way. I was more concerned about looking trashy. It’s one thing to smoke as a 21-year-old. It’s another thing entirely to smoke as a 21-year-old mother. I’m discovering I have a disgusting obsession with how people perceive me. We kept our late night smoke sessions a secret from our roommates and neighbors for as long as we could.

Where Gabriel felt more physically vulnerable when he smoked, I could taste invincibility again for a few blissful moments with a cigarette in my hand. I have learned the brutal fragility of my own life. It has taken many months, countless counseling sessions and thousands of tears since feeling the life being choked out of me—but I could finally feel young and strong again—when I smoked. I could reclaim that feeling of cool and calm that I had sitting on the front steps of our old apartment building. I felt untouchable—however silly and dangerous that feeling may be.

I know smoking is incredibly bad for me. I feel it in my lungs. And I do care about my body (to some extent), so Gabriel and I finished our last pack last night and it’s already hard. It’s not necessarily hard not to put a cigarette to my lips, but I am grieving the loss of that feeling—the loss of that moment that Gabriel and I shared every night. We’ve tried to quit in the past and replace our night smokes with night time tea drinking and it’s just not the same. Sipping a cup of Throat Coat doesn’t exactly give me the same buzz of cool that dragging on a cigarette does.

I’m trying to be a more honest person. For someone who posts an incredible amount of highly sensitive personal information on the internet, I’m actually an extremely private person and that can lead to dishonesty. It’s hard for me to share my true feelings and thoughts with my husband and family. I wanted to hide the fact that I loved smoking cigarettes because I didn’t want people to see that ugly, immature part of me. I would love to look like a clean, put together, innocent survivor, but alas, my life has never quite looked the way I wanted it to. I quit smoking because I want to be able to honestly tell my son not to smoke because he should respect his body. I suppose I need to learn that lesson as well.

        But I really would love a cigarette.