SLEEP...sometimes it finds me, sometimes it doesn't. Seems as if I've traded out one worry for another. While I no longer worry about flying fists or stabbing words, I now worry about things such as my finances, am I raising my kids right, what do I do if someone breaks into my house, do I have enough time off if one of the kids is sick in the morning, etc. My mind never seems to turn off. There are nights when I lay in bed begging God to just make my thoughts disappear so I can fall asleep. Thankfully last night I fell asleep like a baby; unfortunately I didn't stay sleep...
The year was 2009, the month was December, about 4 days before Christmas...we were renting this house together and had just moved in two weeks prior. I was a teleworker at the time, so I all of my work equipment was at the house. He saw an email from a male friend, WHOP!, just like that I was holding my hand over my eye where he had just punched me. Immediately my eye began to swell and turn colors. Then came the arguing and a few more blows...fast forward 5 days...we haven't been in this house 30 days and he is back to his usual self. Apparently he has forgotten he now has someone to come home to. I beg him not to go, he has been out almost every night, he goes anyway. I am pissed, so I will show him. I barricade the front door with the living furniture so he cannot get in and I go to sleep. Hours later he comes home, he's drunk off his ..., banging on the door. I get the furniture from in front of the door, the door swings open and he locks eyes with me and then charges me from across the room. (Sidebar - do you remember the cartoons when something would fall on the characters head or they would run into something and they would see stars? I never understood the seeing stars until this night). WHOP, WHOP, WHOP, he punches me so hard in my eyes, everything goes black and there are the stars...thank God I work at home because now both of my eyes are black...
This is what popped into my mind last night and woke me out my sleep; my personal little nightmare...that was the end of my peaceful, steady sleep. This night was almost 9 years ago; the physical pain was not present, but every ounce of fear and helplessness I felt that night, it found its way into my body last night and that is what jolted me awake. Being completely transparent, I have had my moments when I think, "should I have stayed"...and then things like this happen and it just confirms I made the right decision leaving that toxic relationship. No one, man, woman, child deserves to live under that type of stress or be in that much fear at any point in time, and especially not at the hands of someone that claims to love them. As I type these words, I am filled with so much gratitude and thankfulness that God saw fit to spare me...I just knew that night my life was over. 4 am saw my ugliest, deepest, most shameful secret that night.
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