True Confession

I know that I'm a mother
Stretch marks make that clear
Yet in my heart the space they fill
Is more than I can bear.

I love them without question
I tell them time and again
My words fall short of how I feel
My tears blown away by the wind.
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Growing up I always knew I would be a mother someday, even after I was told it would not be possible I held onto a tiny bit of hope that it would eventually happen.

When I found out I was pregnant with Matthew there was no question, no doubt, no what-ifs that I would do everything in my power to bring him safely into the world.

I didn't feel the same way about Connor.

I have NEVER admitted that out loud, so no other living soul in the world knows what I am about to share in the space of this Blog. I am fully award that at some point my three sons would read not only my handwritten journals, they would also read Coming Into the Light.

There is no way for me to know whether or not it will help my boys - knowing this point of view, or if it will just cause more confusion and take them further away from me. I can however say this: everything I have written in my journals, and everything I have typed into this blog are true.

I started keeping journals when I was ten years old and I did so - and I remember this so clearly - because if major things happened in my life, I wanted a record with which to remember all of it by. That was the first line I wrote in my very first journal more than 40 years ago. Little did I know that, weeks later, my brother would die in a motor vehicle accident. 

My journals became my lifeline. I could be completely honest without fear of repercussions for saying exactly what I felt and exactly what I thought. My world, from age 9 on, was small. I didn't trust most of the people around me because they had proven to me, time and again that there were very good reasons why I shouldn't.
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As mentioned in another post, I'm sure, I knew almost immediately after BIB, Connor's dad, and I were married that I wanted out. So much so that I had already found a new apartment for Matthew and I to move into. Karma, Murphy's Law, pissed off Gods - whatever it was - had very different ideas about that happening. A freak fall in the snow badly broke my leg in a couple of places, requiring surgery and a hospital stay, and several weeks off work.

My hope of freedom from BIB was immediately crushed and I became a prisoner in my own home. It felt as if my wings had been ripped off my body and I was miserable, not just physically, emotionally too.

BIB and I continued to argue. BIB continued pinning me to the bed or floor by sitting on me and restraining my arms. Then, nose to nose, he would scream at me about how it's a "husband's right" to fuck whenever HE wanted and I, as a wife, was expected to comply.  The only way I could stop the torture was to give him a grudge fuck. This was what we constantly fought about. Him wanting to fuck (Making love? I didn't know what that was then.) and me surrendering to a grudge fuck to get him to leave me alone and shut him up, for a day or two, at most.

To recap, I planned to move out, broke my leg, became a prisoner in my home and grudge fucked BIB.

Then, I found out I was pregnant with Connor. Worse yet, he was conceived during a grudge fuck with his father. My broken leg covered with a fluorescent pink cast.

I was angry. That's not true. I was pissed-the-fuck-off. The last thing I needed (or wanted) was to be pregnant by a man I hated and, up until I broke my leg, was leaving.  Feeling like a prisoner in my home, before finding out I was pregnant, was bliss in comparison to what now felt like life without a snowball's chance in hell of being paroled.

The fights with BIB worsened. He was starry-eyed about becoming a dad for the first time and I couldn't care less. I didn't want Matthew to remain in such a volatile environment, and I didn't want to be pregnant. I wanted to take Matthew and run as far and as fast as I possibly could to get away from BIB.

There were numerous times BIB physically pinned me to a wall and, again, screaming so close to my face I could feel his angry spit, he lost control. Again. Even when I was 6 months pregnant with Connor he shoved me into the the bathroom wall. That horrid 1970's pink bathroom with pink tiled floor and pink tiled walls and pink bathtub and pink toilet and pink sinks and pink countertops.

One night, I ran out of the house in the midst of a violent screaming fight with BIB, hopped in the car and took off. Matthew was with his dad at the time. I don't recall how long I had been driving around before I found a payphone and called BIB. The verbal fight picked up where it left off when I ran out the door. My rage boiled over when he refused to leave the house so I could return home. I remember slamming the earpiece of the phone on the hook that holds it. My frustrated anger fueled the violence to the point I shattered the earpiece. I couldn't care less.

The telephone handset was shattered and no longer an object I could take my overwhelming rage out on. I started punching and slamming my hands on the steering wheel and screaming about how much I hated BIB. Then I turned my fists on myself, punching my abdomen as hard as I possibly could. I had wished in that moment that'd I had a knife within reach.

If I had, I would have killed myself and my unborn baby.

There was no question, no doubt, no what-ifs that, that night, with a knife in my hand, I would have killed us both.