I remember it as clear as day...
It was payday. I had very carefully budgeted my paycheck to pay some overdue bills...there wasn't a penny to spare...it was all carefully accounted for.
My exah called me on my cell phone as I traveled home...tired...oh so tired...and asked me to pick up a fifth of rum for him. He was in one of THOSE moods....you know the kind...the type of mood where if I didn't pick up the rum, he would make me miserable...following me around the house and hounding me for cash. It didn't matter that my purse was always locked in a lockbox the minute I got home so he couldn't steal any cash or checks out of it...My exah would follow me from room to room nagging me, badgering me, pleading with me, to buy him alcohol. (he would actually say things like "at least I'm not using heroin..."as though I should be HAPPY about that...Assuming, of course, that he was telling the truth which was unlikely anyway).
I don't know why this was a turning point because this incident was so incredibly small...insignificant, really...compared to so many of the traumas and dramas I had gone thru in the last few years.
For some reason...I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't live like that another minute. Not one more second.
I was done. D-O-N-E.
I gathered my son up, took him to my exah's brother's home, and called iin the troops (my brothers and sisters) to move me and my son out of our marital home the next morning.
To hell with the fact that we were almost three months behind on the mortgage at that point.
To hell with the fact that my exah would surely spiral into some kind of deep, dark pit when/if I left.
To hell with the fact that my son "needed" a father...(or so I thought).
To hell with everything.
I was done.
Done. Done. Done.
And so I left.
And I never went back. That was almost 3 years ago.
We gave the house back to the bank in lieu of foreclosure.
I moved into a rental house and lived there with my son for almost two years until I could buy a new home of my own.
And I did it. And I'm so proud of myself...and so full of gratitude...and peace...and hope.
Life used to be so dark...so scary...so hopeless.
I used to feel so damn defeated...and trapped.
But not anymore.
Today, I'm genuinely happy.
And I thank God every single day for leading me out of the darkness and back into the light.
It IS possible to escape hell.
I'm living proof
Thank you God.'
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.