When I make a decision, I don’t look over my shoulder. That is what I tell people when they ask how I left. I was twenty-four years old when I made one of the biggest decisions in my life.
I used to think of violence as anger. As red and black paint streaked and peeling on the walls of a broken-down home. I thought of it as broken furniture and broken bones. I thought of it as hushed whispers passed between neighbors down the street. I thought of violence as the flashing red and blue lights of the police cars investigating a noise complaint. I thought of it as broken glass and slamming doors, bouquets of flowers and endless strings of “I’m sorry”.
The violence I knew was silent. The violence was extravagant. There were no hushed whispers from the neighbors or flashing lights of police cars. The walls weren’t black and red, they were a dull grey, cracked and peeling from tears of fear and loneliness. The violence was waking every day to broken promises and preparing myself to face another day chasing the endless string of desperation. The violence was isolation. There were no neighbors, no friends, no family members. There was no way to reach them. There were no flowers, no apologies. The violence I knew came wrapped in elaborate paper, a finely printed design that was simple enough not to stand out but detailed enough not to question. Not even I knew to question it. Every day, the paper wrapped subtly tighter, became thicker around the edges of the container that divided me from the world. At some point I stopped realizing that the paper had become a barrier I could no longer see from. Instead, I became lost between its crisp and tidy folds, trying desperately to make sense of the patterns that sharply zig zagged and circled and became bolder
and bolder.
The problem with building an empire out of designs on a paper is that eventually the patterns begin spilling the secrets. I realized the aggression in the patterns were repeating themselves, the variations getting darker, and closer together. The morning of April 20th I found myself alone with my children. This was a rare occasion – rare like the sun that made its way through the rainclouds that commonly grace the month of April. For weeks, I had quietly been studying the patterns in the paper, and finally found the bravery to poke my finger through it. It tore easily. I remember the feeling of the reality as I knew it shattering to millions of pieces on the floor as I stared through the tiny hole I made. I remember the moment of realizing that everything I thought I knew was never real. It was in that moment that I knew that no amount of paper would ever cover what I had uncovered. I remember the unsettling fear of confronting what I found, the rapid beating of my heart and the dryness of my mouth. There was no going back.
At twenty-four years old I walked away with my children – a child in each hand, and another carried in a sling over my shoulder. I didn’t turn around.
I restarted from scratch. My art, my records, photographs, any achievements, anything I once valued, was gone. Many relationships suffered and struggled during the years of my absence, and upon finding old friendships, never fell back into place. I reconnected with my mother who provided shelter those first few months. She left a red notebook and pen on my temporary bed and told me to just start writing. When I look back, I can see the places where I was trying to make sense of everything, my handwriting young and loose and vulnerable.
I slowly began rebuilding an empire, one built of knowledge and discipline. The walls have been painted with lively colors by the compassion and support of those who understand. Every brick is another step I take to rebuild all that was lost. When it seems that each blow that life constantly throws at me will be the last I can take, I run my finger along the scar on inside of my right hand – the only proof of the violence that challenged the silence – and I look in the mirror. The reflection has changed since that day on April 20th, and I often wonder if we would even recognize each other. But when I look hard enough, past the reflection, I see them, I know they’re still there. I look to remember, to acknowledge the immense bravery in those first steps. That twenty-four-year-old is the reason I can write about and share the destructive power of domestic violence. Because of that person, I have a future. My children will have a future. Because of that person, we have a chance to hope. Because of that person, I know who I am now. I know my place, my value, my courage, my grief, my pride. I know the compassion for others, for the souls that have faced destruction rooted and inflamed by power and control. My young shadow walks alongside me when fear and discouragement lay threats of my doorstep. We walk together, my shadow and I. We came back, and we will continue to overcome.
