It has been the thought - how did I end up like this from the unstoppable I was?
When life was limitless, things came to me easily. I knew there was something to it, and I embraced, relished in it. I do know when I noticed that changed. It was further ago than I like to admit, and since it has taken so long to get over it, clearly I'm not doing it right. I met Geoff in summer 1993. I had a sweet boyfriend who accept my wondering, stagehand life and was willing to keep a place for us- be an anchor while I traveled around. He wanted to be my light on the horizon. Geoff was at my apartment in Virginia. He backed me to the wall and kissed me despite me asking him not too. Due to past abuse, I stopped resisting and just let him. I had a grain of 'they will just take it' rubbing a spot raw in my head. I had maintained control of my thoughts and body from when I was 16 until this point. I had fought back anyone who dared touch uninvited. Something about this moment in Virginia, I could not. I was compelled to continue in something my very being was opposed to. We went to Goshen Pass and splashed in the river. I said out loud that 'This feels like home" while my brain was screaming that I was lying. The place may have, but he did not feel like home. Again, I felt like I had not choice but to end my relationship with Lonny, and go with Geoff. I have told different reasons for this change of heart that were absolutely true, but the deep down one was I felt I had absolutely no other option.
I finished my contract in Virginia and went to New York for a short gig and to pack up my life. I knew in my deep that I would never return the same. I felt forced on a road I would not choose of my own volition. We sold my car. We loaded my personal acquirements into his truck, and onto a trailer. My inner deep was hoping, praying, begging my parents to refuse to let me go. We stopped in VA to pick up a bigger truck and his stuff. We drove to Florida. He backed the truck up to the single car garage that we would live in and convert to an addition on the house for rent. He left for an ex-girlfriend's house and left me to unload on my own. I was usually alone at the house. I would realize he wasn't around, so he was at work or at Kristen's. He didn't say goodbye. He just left. I had no car, and no way of getting around. My roommates left me completely alone (at Geoff's request)
Geoff's confession 2 weeks later was while I was packing my NY, his ex Kristen had come to see him. They had sex and decided to get together, and live the life they had been talking about for years. He came to NY to tell me face to face, and that the offer of a job in FL still stood if I wanted to come as a friend- to offer me the choice. When he saw how much packing and prep work I had done, he felt guilty for my effort and kept quiet. His run to Kristen's house as soon as we arrived was to tell her of the change of life plans for them. She was supposed to be moving in with him that day. He asked me to be kind to her, because her feelings were so hurt by the whole thing. After all, I wasn't the one who had my heart broken. No. I had been betrayed, kidnapped and left for dead. Also, the evil bitch who stole him away from her. When I asked him months earlier if she was his girlfriend, he said they never had been a couple.
This is when my life went from an adventure to forced acceptance. My decisions were made for me. Out of money, with no transportation and an unwillingness to abandon my possessions that I had worked to hard to earn and restore on my own, I was in a situation I could not change. I was forced to accept the limits of a predetermined life. I lost my ability to do anything independently. I couldn't drive standard. He retreated into video games and beer after months in Virgina of hiking, camping, etc. He said I had grown too dependent on him for time and conversation. He was ignoring me to force me to make friends and do other things. Leave him alone because he deserved to be alone from growing up youngest of 9.
If I could not longer have my own life as my heart lead, accept what is and make the best of it. I shut down and did what family and friends expected next. What makes the most people happy was the logical thing. I became irrelevant the day he showed up in NY, maybe the day he kissed me. So I married him and made the best of what was good for him and let myself come second, third, eighth-
I do not know what power this person had over me. I do not know why I was compelled to do everything he directed when my core cried out otherwise to me. I didn't stand up for myself. For 13 years, I had erased myself, and I don't know why.
I do know that I have not forgiven myself for all of it. I don't know if I can even though this dreadful road has led me somewhere to my heart again. If everything had not happened as it did, I would not have the people I love now. That makes it very hard to forgive myself for living halfway for 17 years- nearly half my life sitting and waiting for the chance to be unstoppable again.
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