Lost Memories

by robyn
(pottsville pa usa)

If someone would have told me that someday I would be a victim of domestic violence, I would not have believed it.

6 months ago I got the courage (from where, I have no idea) to leave me husband of 6 years with our two children. I had no means of income, no secret money, no car of my own, nothing. But i did this because one day I woke up and realized I was just surviving, I wasnt living.

For years I knew that someday I was going to leave him. I just never found the right time:

"christmas is coming soon, maybe after that"
"Joey's birthday is next week, after that"
"well its summer time and we just put in a pool and the kids deserve one last good summer."

I actually even wished that I could wake up one day and hate him, and completely lose every ounce of love I have ever had for him. That would make leaving a thousand times easier. Is it crazy that after everything I still cared about him? No, because I am a human being, we made children together, I married him because I loved him. That love doesn't just disappear.

And its scary because sometimes when I'm here, in my apartment and the kids are in bed and I'm alone, I think about how much I'm struggeling ... financially, mentally, physically ... I'm exhausted. My mind wonders to a thought, a scary thought, about going back. Maybe he has changed like he promises, maybe he will stop drinking this time like he swears.

But then, I painfully make myself remember how I felt the night he pulled of the road and cracked my head onto a concrete block and knocked me out. Or, I remember the times he locked us into the closet and sat on my chest and placed a pillow over my face and whispered in my ear "I hope you kissed the kids goodnight tonight extra good because you are going to die now." Or, I remember the night he drug me down the steps when I was 9 months pregnant because I woke him up. Or, I recall the night after we attended a wedding, and he hung me feet first dangling over the banister threatening to drop me.

These memories won't ever go away. And in a way, it's a curse and a blessing. If I completely forgot the twisted things he has done to me over the years, I would probably go back. It hurts to remember, but I guess I need to.

My brain is so full of contradictions, and I'm constantly weighing pros and cons. Is he really changed this time? Has he really quit drinking?
Am I doing the right thing here?

But when these lost memories creep back up on me, I know that I have made the right decision
for me and my babies.