Zen...

There are some days when I go about my business. I get up, get my coffee, tell my kids good morning, if they're awake, go to my desk, check emails and twitter. Get in the shower and go to work. If I don't work until the afternoon I do similar things, but run any errands I need to, maybe take the kids to breakfast, or dance around the house with my daughter.

Then there are days when I get up and start out doing that, then all of a sudden I get slapped in the face by the realization that I was married to a bully whose only goal in life, it would appear, is to make my life infinitely hard. It's like running at a leisurely pace then unknowingly slamming into a set of tackling sled dummies, only the dude standing on the sled is a big fat doodoo head and you can't shake him off the damn thing no matter how hard you push it across the field.

I spent a ridiculously stupid amount of time wasted on pretending to be someone I was not. Believing that I was not worth the dreams I had. Believing that in order to be loved I had to make sure I was what he wanted me to be. Let me ask you this. Do I *look* like I shop at Eddie Bauer?! How about Columbia or Timberland? Does anything about me scream, "Hey, I'd like to wear a pair of Teva hiking sandals today?"

No.

And yet for some reason this man I was married to seemed to think I did. If you have never been in an emotionally abusive relationship then you will not understand. At all. You will not be able to comprehend the level of fear. Abuse comes in all forms and it's not just physical. I swore that I would never let any man lay a hand on me after what happened to my Mother.

I almost made it.

I met a guy when I was 19 yrs old. He was 27. After my "Pro Athlete" dating fiasco (Oy! There's a story for another time and place) and before my ex husband. Anyway, this guy and I started dating. He had this great house out in the country and looking back I'm sure part of me was 'playing house'. I was too young to really know...well...anything. lol I used to have long naturally curly hair. It came down to my waist. Long story short, one moment I was jogging up the stairs and the next he was coming up the stairs behind me, grabbing a handful of my hair, yanking me backwards and dragging me back down. The pain in my head and back were... *heavy sigh*. He had asked me a question and apparently the answer I gave was the 'wrong' one. Now, this is where you might say to yourself, "Why the hell wouldn't you have just fought back?" Number one, he had leverage, momentum and distance. And two....he had a gun. Did I mention he was a cop and was just getting off duty? Still in uniform, gun in holster.

Was I smart enough to leave him? Nope.

Words. He was always good with words. I did leave him not too much longer after that though, when I walked into the house on his birthday to find him standing in the kitchen enjoying a glass of wine with some woman I had kinda recognized. She was a nurse who worked in a hospital that he sometimes went to if necessary to take statements from victims who’d been taken there. The prick had the nerve to introduce me! I stood there in silence looked from him to her and back, walked slowly over to her and dropped my house key into her glass of wine. I said, "He's all yours." Turned and walked out. Done.

The man I married never laid a hand on me, so I guess I thought I had it made. SMH

His tactic was mental and emotional abuse. Control through fear. I will not get into nor bore you with details of how he achieved this. Just remember that phrase. Control through fear. He is still trying to use this tactic even now, a year after the divorce. The only communication that I’m legally required to have with him is about the kids - their immediate safety and visitation. That's it. Unfortunately, he’s under the impression that because I’m the mother to his children, I’m still required to report to him about what I do, think and feel, where I go and when I’m not going to be home. (Clearly, he doesn’t understand what his signature on the divorce decree really means.) It would be grand if I never saw him again, but there will always be school functions where the kids are concerned. I digress.

Instead of live-and-let-live, however, I’ve gotten two random harassing texts from him in the last two days that have nothing to do with either the immediate safety of my children nor about visitation. They were instead filled with hatred and insults - typical. I was so upset after the one this morning I was shaking. I do not have to tell you the level of pissed Mel was/is at him.

Then tonight at work we're closing up, the crew I had closing with me, and myself were dancing and singing and having a great time. First we took it to Church with a little Kirk Franklin then we smoothed it out with Ne-Yo. I needed that. I went into the back room to grab my phone and check to see if my kids had texted needing anything. Nope. What I found instead was a hate text from my ex’s best friend whom I haven't even spoken to since last year (the last time he harassed me via text). WTF?!!!

This is my life.

I'm just trying to live. Trying to provide and be a good Mom. Trying to make something of myself. The thing I don’t understand is what the hell my ex wants from me. He bitched when I worked three jobs because I wasn’t there for the kids. He bitched when I didn’t work, claiming I used the kids child support for my own personal gain. Now that I’m working again, he’s bitching again, claiming I’m neglecting my kids. Where does it end? It doesn’t. This is who he is. This is what I’ve dealt with for over fifteen years – nothing I do is good enough for him. Not even now, when legally and technically, it’s not his business what I do. He’s moved on, supposedly. He’s living with a woman now that he’s been seeing since shortly after our separation last summer. One would think that I should be a blip on his radar, not his primary focus. Is his life so empty that making mine hell is his main priority? If that’s the case, I pity his girlfriend.

As it is, he stalks me in Twitter. That's fun. He doesn't actually have an account. He just likes to spy on my timeline. He even has someone who works with him spy on Mel's and reports back to him. Wanna know how I know? Because my kids told me. Wanna know why? Because we have a great relationship and they found it odd. Ya think?!

His hateful words and assumptions about my character are just proof to me that he has no clue about who I am. Even further proof that he never did. I don't lie. The things I say on Twitter and here, are not lies. They are me. They are MY thoughts, feelings and experiences. MINE. For over fifteen years, I tried to be someone I wasn't because when you live with someone who thinks you're never good enough, you'll stoop to whatever it takes to get his approval -- approval you'll never have. So if there was ever a lie, it was that I wasn’t really who he wanted me to be. That is a hard pill to swallow I'm sure and would probably explain quite a bit of why he still spends so much time thinking about me when he’s supposed to be in love with someone else.

What my ex thinks of me is irrelevant, but to think of the pain he's causing my kids because of his bitterness and anger over the divorce is what hurts. THEY are the victims here. I'm immune to his words after this long, but they're not. Their 12 and 10 year old hearts still want to believe their dad can do no wrong. Someday, they'll see on their own what kind of person he is and what kind of husband he was to me -- not because I tell them (I value their hearts more than that), but because a leopard can only hide his spots for so long. My kids are smart and they're tenderhearted and they. see. everything. They. Hear. EVERYTHING. It hurts me to think that they'll see what he's truly like, but all I can do is be loving and tell them about the good times we had once. I’ll be genuine with them, as I always have. But I will no longer be afraid. Fear doesn’t control my life anymore.

It's amazing what happens when you are no longer afraid to be yourself.

I ended my day, with a talk with my bestie, OK...more like my bestie getting increasingly agitated at the situation, but she knows. She knows what it was like for me. She knows what I've been through, so it stands to reason. When my head is heavy and my heart is weary, she's swingin like a champ for me til I can find my legs again. I got kisses and hugs from my kids.......and then crawled into bed to have the best sound in my ears, from the one voice that washes over me like warm bath water soothing away any words of hate that were thrown at me today. He may not have been talking directly to me, but it don't matter, the end result was the same. I had a moment of complete Zen. :)

P.s- Tonight's interview is my favorite interview EVER. For cereal.......ever. It just is.