Stolen Away on 55th and 3rd

There's a lot to think about on a three hour round trip drive for work...

No words, my tears won't make any room for more
And it don't hurt like anything I've ever felt before
This is no broken heart, no familiar scars
This territory goes uncharted...

Just me in a room sunk down in a house in a town
And I don't breathe
Though I never meant to let it get away from me
Now I'm too much to hold, everybody has to get their hands on gold
And I want uncharted
Stuck under the ceiling I made, I can't help the feeling...

I'm going down
Follow if you want, I won't just hang around
Like you'll show me where to go,
I'm already out of foolproof ideas
So don't ask me how to get started
It's all uncharted

Each day, I'm countin' up the minutes 'til I get alone
'Cause I can't stay in the middle of it all
It's nobody's fault, but I'm so low
Never knew how much I didn't know
Oh, everything is uncharted
I know I'm getting nowhere
When I only sit and stare like...

Jump start my kaleidoscope heart
I love to watch the colors fade
They may not make sense
But they sure as hell made me

I won't go as a passenger, no
Waiting for the road to be laid
Though I may be going down
I'm taking flame over burning out

Compare where you are to where you want to be and you'll get nowhere

I'm going down
Follow if you want, I won't just hang around
Like you'll show me where to go
I'm already out of foolproof ideas
So don't ask me how...
Ohh

Definitely took a wrong turn somewhere...

So a certain time in my life crosses my mind from time to time.  I credit it as perhaps the worst year of my entire life, though to some, they would have no idea.  It has been nearly two years since it occurred, but for some reason I still can't shake it.  It was suggested that I write about it, and since no one reads this blog anyway, it seemed like the perfect place for it to come out.

Where to even begin?


I was always the kind of girl who could never ever believe that women would allow men to control them, hurt them, abuse them, etc.  I thought of them as lowly and weak.  I thought for sure that if I was in that situation I would easily remove myself, or better yet never let it happen in the first place.
Vulnerability definitely played a part in the ill-fated beginning of a friendship that would turn into a "relationship". I want you to first think of how you would define a relationship and what you would expect from it.  Typical answers (I would assume) would range from: having fun together, mutual trust, respect, romance, etc.  Keep those in mind as you enter into a relationship consumed with manipulation, greed, jealousy, and control.

I found the man of my dreams.  We met at work and were fast friends.  I could tell him anything and he was fun to be around.  We flirted relentlessly even though he was my superior.  Eventually, we formed into a relationship and were constantly together or talking.  We would leave work, secretly meet up where no one would see us together, and then spend all of our free time together. Things were perfect.  It was your typical disgustingly cute relationship; not being able to hang up the phone at night, constantly texting, flowers and other romantic surprises-it was what every girl would have wanted.

Soon enough it became necessary for me to transfer stores to make it impossible for either of us to get fired.  I don't know if it was the fact that we didn't see each other as much, or what it was, honestly, but things seemed to change.  He had never been pro on the sorority front and resented the fact that I was Greek.  He clearly had watched too much MTV Sorority Life and had it ingrained in his mind that I was your typical sorostitute.  He would call me names, call my friends names, and fight with me every time I went to a meeting or even mentioned being in a sorority.  Crazy thing was that I started to believe him.  Me- Miss NKU and KD, former president, lover of all things AOT. 

I became withdrawn.  I stopped attending as many activities, skipped meetings because I was "sick", skipped my LAST Bid Day pictures, and basically cut my last semester of KD short.  If I would even talk to another KD, or other Greek friend, he would start an argument and threaten to not talk to me, cancel our evening plans, or break up with me.  I vividly remember walking past a group of girls that I knew very well and blatantly ignoring them because he was with me.  I completely looked the other way.  I looked over at him and he had a smirk on his face. I will NEVER be able to get that moment out of my head, and to this day, I can't talk about that moment (or write about it) without crying. 

If I didn't answer a call or text it was automatically assumed that I was cheating. He told me that I couldn't wear dresses because they made me look slutty, and one time he even went as far as to not let me in my bathroom to put on makeup when we went out. He made me feel guilty for doing nothing.  He made me feel disgusted with myself.  He eventually decided that he didn't like any of my friends and when I would hang out with them, tearful hour long arguments would ensue- it eventually became a hassle and didn't seem worth the fight anymore.  Clearly we would assume I would win the fight, but no, he did.  I would only answer calls or text friends when he wasn't around, and when he was I would ignore my friends' attempts to contact me.

It is hard to grasp in writing the way I felt inside, or still feel, for that matter.  Nothing I could say could fully make you understand what that time was like for me.  The emotional abuse was bad- perhaps worse than physical (in my mind- anyone can disagree).  Name-calling, manipulation, jealousy- it was all there.  I felt like a rag doll- like I had all of the life sucked out of me and that I didn't have an identity anymore. 

I am unsure of what happened next...

One day I arrived at class.  My group was supposed to present our huge marketing project and I went to the bathroom with one of my classmates, my high school best friend, Liz.  All of a sudden I began sobbing- I couldn't control myself and I couldn't compose myself, either.  I wound up having to leave and met up with him in the parking garage at NKU.  His face was so full of hate- it became clear to me now.  He didn't see what he was doing, but he loved every minute of it.  Of course he tried to talk his way out of everything, and eventually it worked.  He had won yet again.

I went through the remainder of the school year.  We shared Christmases together with our families, and he became the one and only person I hung out with.  At this point my friends saw what was happening- even tried to tell me- but I was oblivious yet again.  He still had me attached to him like a rag doll. He had me right where he wanted me, and he loved every minute of it.

I can't tell you how it ended, but it did.  I was going to go see a movie with three of my girl friends.  He knew that I was going, and started in on me about who was going to be there, what we were doing, what time it was going to be, when would I be home, were we doing anything else, etc., etc.  I couldn't take it- I ended it right there.  Cut him out completely.  I sobbed all night, but this was a different kind of crying.  This crying was releasing all of the CRAP that came along with the past year of my life and coming to grips with the fact that I had completely changed.

It has taken two years to finally be able to come to grips with this.  Every time I start thinking about it I cry, and throughout typing this, nothing is different.  I typically don't blame others for things that go wrong in my life, but I give FULL BLAME to him for ruining my last semester of college and even I cringe if I see a picture of him.

I felt a lot of guilt for a LONG after this. I felt guilty for abandoning my friends. I felt guilty for allowing myself to think that they were any of the crazy names he would call them.  I felt guilty that I lied to so many people.  I felt guilty that I turned my back on commitments to make things easier to deal with in regards to him.  But the thing I felt most guilty about was always thinking that it could never happen to me and that those who let it happen were weak and submissive.  I felt like I was diseased and it took awhile to find a cure (if you have ever heard the "Rehab" song by Rhianna, that was what it felt like).  It is truly a credit to family and certain friends that I was able to stand up again and resist any of his futile attempts to get me back.

I was definitely taken on a wrong turn somewhere, but to be honest, the end results could have been much worse. I am thankful to be where I am now.  If anyone does read this, I would appreciate your discretion.

Soundtrack

I am not so much on the road today...

"I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together." — Marilyn Monroe

This has been my mantra lately.  Kinda goes hand-in-hand with the "grass is greener on the other side idea", but I think it is even more than that.  Sometimes we get so wrapped up in how things should be, or where we should be at a certain time in life that we forget it's okay to not be on the same page or path as someone else.  If I had kept with the path I was on and continued to be brainwashed by the fact that I should be on that path, I would never know what better things would come my way.  Point blank, I would have settled.  This is not to say that no one can ever have true happiness at any given point in their life; I do believe that it exists, but I am not naive to the fact that it doesn't always happen when you want it to or think it should.

Lies are hard business.  It is difficult to sometimes decide how truthful you should be.  To what extent do you stay honest with yourself and others before it actually becomes debilitating on the relationship.? This is not to say that I condone being dishonest, but at the end of the day I would have to ask myself if I would rather someone say to me, "no, I don't want to hang out with you because I don't like you", or "I have to wash my hair tonight".  Which one is worse, and how do you decide?  In the past I lied to myself allowing myself to believe that I was truly happy and that things were the way they should be.  I find it very conflicting that I could lie to myself, but sometimes it happens.  It then becomes a hard task of figuring out how to be true to yourself and stop lying.

Lastly, I have been in enough bad "things" to know a good one when it falls into my lap.  I have always had the personality of wanting what I want, when I want it, and doing practically anything (within reason and legality) to get it.  This can be best demonstrated by moving all of the (monstrously heavy) furniture in my bedroom around at 2:00 AM simply because I want it changed, and no, I don't want to wait for someone to help me. Bad example of a life changing moment, but you get my drift.  But at what point do I say, "okay, why does this have to happen now" ? When can I just let things fall into my lap instead of looking for it? I feel like I just answered my own question because I have been doing that here recently, and I decided that it scares the bejesus out of me.  It is exciting- don't get me wrong- but it just isn't the way my brain works.

All in all, I do believe that everything happens for a reason, however, I just wish I knew what those reasons were.  I guess life is more exciting not knowing, but I hate surprises.