A while ago, in a writing workshop, I was asked what my origin story is. Initially I didn’t have an answer. After giving it some thought, I realized everything I witnessed and experienced as a child influences my writing. We are the sum of our experiences and everything that we go through influences who we become and who we eventually will be.
I begin going to see the acupuncturist each week. She tells me to cut out white starches and sugar, and to add in more dark greens, red meat, and fish. She says I’m anemic; that’s why I’ve been nonstop exhausted. I lift my tongue three times each day, using a dropper to measure the herbs into my mouth. They taste like earth and spice. I let myself hope, once or twice, the smallest pinch, that life might become different, that I might one day feel healthy.
For three months I see her every week. Then I stop taking the birth control pills. It’s like strapping myself into a rollercoaster— the coming month could be exhilarating or terrible, but either way I’m committed.
We hurt from deep to the bone cuts. In ways that bubble up and fester. In ways that pour out. In ways that erupt in rage - like a volcano, like a storm. In ways that spew from our souls. For it's our soul that is the most bruised, and it's our soul that must heal.
My father joins us, sitting across from my future husband and me. The shade of the fig tree is deep. My father takes a big gulp of his rotgut wine. “Are you sure you want to do this?” my father asks.
The thought of a world without my mischievous best friend steals the lightness from the day, and my body feels heavy as I fill my hat with salmon berries, wild strawberries, and blackberries swollen from summer rain.
I dove in. I did everything you’re supposed to do when grieving; I meditated, practiced yoga, wrote, cried, felt. But it wasn’t enough. The wounds I held had been left untreated for so long, it was like they’d been infected. Infected with sorrow, hopelessness, and self-hatred.
I have no explanation for why this man chose to rape me. I guess could speculate but I don’t. I have come to understand that the reason he chose to do what he did had everything to do with him.
Pets are yours for life: to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part. Amen
I kept up that façade until we walked through Kensington Gardens, when I felt a distinct pop in my abdomen. The pain that had wracked my belly was gone. Suddenly, I could walk briskly among the fountains and flowers. But I didn’t want to. Because it was over. I knew, despite my doubts, that something very real had come to an end.
By being so brave, you have validated us. You have made us heard. You have brought this petrifying war to the spotlight. You have made me strong enough to look back at my former self who didn’t believe her rape was “true rape” because it wasn’t this and it wasn’t that, and know that it was just as valid as it was horrifying.
The plan was that my son would see his dad, I’d do some freelance teaching, and we’d go to my best friend’s wedding and then a few days in Costa Rica, our first vacation. It was a jammed schedule, but I was a pro at cramming chaos into a calendar. We stopped in a sea of brake lights on that misty summer evening in North Carolina and tires squealed. We ricocheted forward, colliding with the bumper ahead.
