I love duck weather, from the rain falling to the peace that overwhelms me when I hear it hit the roof or window. For those of you that don't know duck weather is rain, lots and lots of rain over a short or long span of time. Last time we had duck weather we also had wind to go along with it. If it was below freezing we would have had feet of snow, but I am glad we had duck weather. Most people call it rain, that's what you probably call it. I call it duck weather, it’s a special forecast that I keep close to my heart, it makes me feel special. We all love a season, mine just happens to be the chilly jacket weather of fall which usually only lasts about 2 weeks. But luckily this year it has decided to stay with us longer. It makes me happy, so very very happy. Chilly in the morning and night and warmish during midday, to me it's perfect. Then you add the rain and I am on cloud nine. I prefer warm rain, but I will take rain however and whenever it comes, even for days at a time.
To me it's not about the consistent downpour of wetness, it’s about the feeling of now and how it cleanses, and after the rain lifts, I feel renewed. To me, it’s about finding joy in something most people hate. To have a different perspective on one of nature's occurrences, that to most people bring misery. I decided long ago to dance in the rain, instead of staying indoors being the girl watching from the window, watching the people dancing in the rain. I needed to know what they were dancing about. So I joined them and found my own reasons in the rain.
Each rain brings new reasons. To me, it's like starting over when the rain ends. I could sit and watch it for days. I long for a vacation full of rain and inside fires, for the conversations that would be had.
As we say good-bye to Summer and hello to Autumn. Autumn has so many different happy meanings in my life that I do not know where to begin and where to end. I remember raking leaves as a child and jumping into the pile. The air feels more crisp and fresh and free. The leaves change colors, and in a new way, every year brings the world to life. I think the colorful fall foliage is something different yet the same every year and we tend to overlook its beauty. We need to stop and smell the roses every once in a while, during autumn we need to sit still and take in the changes that have occurred, that will occur in the next few months for the only thing that is constant is change. We change and grow and so do the people around us.
Sometimes we grow with the seasons and sometimes we play catch up, sometimes we are ahead of others and sometimes we are behind. Some might have more wisdom in life, some might have more book knowledge. Others might have more “gut feelings” you might have a more concrete job than them. I am not saying it is good to compare yourself to people. However what I am saying is, you don't know the wars other people have had to wage to get what they have and be where they are in life. I mean let's face it, life isn't easy for anyone, and it's even tougher when you compare what you have to what others have. Be grateful you won your battles and can learn from the experiences, and not relive them (at least hope not to).
What I have been arguing about writing and going back and forth with myself is about the most abusive experience I have ever encountered. I know I need to write about it and I am just procrastinating because I know it will not be easy, but I know telling the story and how I learned my lesson will hopefully help someone in return. I mean that is why I am doing this after all.
I have written about him before I called him Charles (everyone's name is changed in these blogs). I meet him at a club in downtown New Haven, that isn't there anymore or it moved, to be honest, I don't care. To many memories in the club and I would rather just leave it at that. Our first words to each other were me needing to get around him so I said “Excuse me” and when I reached the top of the stairs he said loud enough for me to hear over the faded music “There's no excuse for you.” A cheesy line for sure, but I am the girl that cries at the cheesy parts in movies, and even to this day I can relive that moment. Granted knowing everything I know now I’m trying to tell my old self NO! However, by the end of the night, we were a couple enthralled with each other in every way. Telling each other whatever the other wanted to know. I look back and see a 17/18-year-old hurting and craving, Charles saw an easy mark. I must say I am not easy nor am I am a mark, and to think I am well that's his opinion.
I don't remember much about our relationship expect the abuse. There were no real happy times, there really was only fear. I recall the first real red flag that I ignored because I saw the “good” in him (looking back I just think I didn't want to look stupid, there was no good in this man).
It was outside my fathers' house in New Haven, in my car that was under his name (another story for another time). He was mad about God knows what most likely for me breathing wrong. Side note- This is what abusers do, they take the little things and blow them up to the point where everything you do is wrong, and don't give the relationship a chance to talk it through without emotion overwhelming the chat. He spat in my face, I grabbed for the door handle to get out of the car and he grabbed me, I tried to punch his stomach yelling “Let me go!”. Eventually, once he knew I was still under his spell, he let me go into the house away from him.
We ended up going to a party about a year or more into our relationship. Charles had me sit on his lap for quite some time until everyone showed up and they knew I belonged to him. For the first time ever he let me off of his lap, he let me out of his sight. I had a sense of the freedom I once had long before him, expect the cloud following me around wasn't depression (my family used to always call my Eeyore), it was fear of what Charles would do to me once I got within arms reach.
I ended up sitting down at an empty table to just breathe in fresh air within eyesight of him; wrong move. 20/20 hindsight really is a type of anxiety, if you haven’t experienced it, it is hard to explain, but I'll give it a shot. It's like your whole body is re-experiencing everything that happened in the moment, you are thinking about how every fiber of your being is telling you to do something else when you can't change a thing. You end up with the same story replayed in your mind. To be honest, it's kind of torture to see how we have failed throughout our lives, and the only positive in reliving as much as we do is (hopefully) learning the flags no matter what color they are. So two guys ended up sitting down across the table from me. Mind you all this time I am drinking tequila mix drink (that I poured myself) and it has been a few hours. We are sitting far away enough that Charles can't hear the conversation, but he sees me laugh. I looked at him, wrong move number 2. I saw that look in his eyes that was like a bull going for a literal red flag, with his eyes even seeming to glow red. I acted like I was going inside the house to go to the bathroom, well I did. I then exited out the front door- hell by midnight everyone is drunk and not paying attention to anyone other than the person in front of them. I walked for a few blocks, called my oldest sister- no answer, I kept on walking trying to find the main street and hope to God I find a person to help me. Tears start to roll down my face for I know what is to come if he finds me gone and then finds me. I picked up the pace. My phone rings; it's him, I can't remember if I ignored the first call or answered it. I just remember I was on the phone walking down a dimly lit street in the middle of the night and I didn't want to be found, but he found me, I should have turned off my phone, I should have left it at the party. He told me to get back to the house, and like a good little handmaiden, I obeyed my master. Charles was already in his red (yes it was actually red) Jeep Grand Cherokee with his window down and told me to get in when I was close enough.
I got in and didn't even have enough time to buckle my seat belt before he sped off down the dark roadway. Again I don't remember much he had my head on his lap, but trying to remember that we took a right, left and went straight until we turned and stopped on the side of the road. He kept wanting to know more about what I talked about with the 2 guys. I told him they were father and son and we were talking about what everyone talks about if you could sleep with any movie star who would it be?. He failed to believe that was all that I remembered, his tempered raised and so did his hands. All remember is I should have let whoever it was pick up my shift since they wanted extra hours. This beating was longer than all of them before, maybe because we weren't at his father's house, we were with no one around us, maybe it was because he thought I truly deserved it. Whatever the reason it seemed to last forever.
I usually skip over this part and go right to the next day, but I know someone out there needs to read this and know it won't get better, and covering up for them is just putting the flowers on your grave, if you don't take the steps to get out. Charles hit my face multiple times to get me to tell the truth and when that failed to work he pulled my hair back so my back was arched and my stomach was wide open, open for punching. He kept asking the same questions over and over again “What else is there? Why aren't you telling me the truth?” (he wouldn't believe that someone could forget that soon that fast.) When he continued to get the same answers he then went to the face and punched my lip so hard I have a scar if you look hard enough still hidden behind the rosy lips. He choked me because he “loved me and just wanted me, to tell the truth” , he choked me so hard I got petechiae. For those of you reading that have the luxury of not know what petechiae are, it is when your blood vessel pop under the skin and causes red dots that look like rashes to show up on your skin. Mine just happen to show up around my eyes that night. After he got bored with my stomach he then moved on to my ribs. Needless to say at this moment in time I was a human punching bag. He was at a whole new level of abuse that night, and once I realized that it had been hours since I touched alcohol I tried to protect myself, again this fed his “No matter what she does it's wrong” mentally. For I somehow made him look weak, or stupid, or less masculine, and honestly to this day. I don't remember the conversation with those two guys besides what I wrote above.
So I got up the next day and got ready for work in pain, so much pain even to breath. I went in though, I went in without tears in my eyes. I don't remember if there was talking in the car while he was driving me to work that day, it was over a decade ago and what seems a lifetime more. That was the night I swore I would get free, it took months and many more beatings, but I got my life back. If I would have left my belongings behind (including my car that was in his name the night of the fight) the process of getting far away would have been so much faster.
I am not happy about that night but I am happy it's over. I am happy I am healthy and in a healthy relationship. I am glad I progressed so much since the summer of 2004.
I thought writing this would bring more tears, and heartache, I like to believe that I have healed and grown past all of what has been written about the past in this blog. It's been 15 years since it happened and that past doesn't control me as I tend to choose it does.
There are 2 more times when I knew I just couldn't anymore. First was at a family pig roast, he and I were yelling at each other in the front yard. We were loud enough that you could hear it in the backyard. Charles ended up having me on the ground over me punching me, I was yelling and his father walks right on by and does nothing. Now mind you I don't recall what we were arguing about but when you call out for help to a person you know can see and hear you and they do nothing well that strikes a chord if it's not already being played.
The second moment in time that really got my motor in gear to get out was when we got into an argument (big surprise about something or another) in our bedroom and he ended up choking me to the point that if he continued to keep that grasp around my neck I would have passed out or died. That sadly was the final straw for me.
See up to that point for the past 2-ish years, since the first hit and the light bulb going off, it was a game. I could play games just like the next person, this game just happened to be how long can Rori push Charles's buttons before he hits her. See he would get me high “To stop you from being a Bitch” he would tell me later in the relationship. When looking back on it, he hated an outspoken woman, when I was high I was anything but outspoken. I was trapped inside my own mind or never-ending rabbit trails of possible realities that my mind made up from the actual reality. My mind would take the present and turn it and twist it into positive and negative experiences, into many different highways. So yeah my mouth became quiet and my mind ran away. When I came down my mouth spoke up, so did his hand apparently.
I remember him driving around when we were stoned. Being in one of the valleys of CT we got to see the foliage change so much when he drove I would stare out the car window for as long as I could, wishing I was a bird so I could fly away. Oh, but how I fell in love with the colors, for every drive the colors were different and I was in a whole new world.
I have always found myself to be the weird one that enjoys the beauty in things that most overlook. I am grateful for my life, I know I could have lost it a long time ago if I never changed course.
I guess I got more than just my love for autumn out of that relationship, I got my love for life as well.
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