Freedom with A Price

How is that we find freedom always comes with a price?  For some, the price is small, almost unrecognizable.  For others, it costs us the very things we hold dear: family, careers, homes, friends, the LBD you've had since college.  For me, it was my first visit to jail.  Yes, you heard me.  Jail.  In a party dress, no less.

On a cold December night, I decided to drive my soon-to-be ex to his company party.  For the past two years I had been marching up to the salient brilliantly, bravely against him: a 6'2" former Marine with a terrible entitlement complex.  He'd hit me, apologize, swear it would never happen again, then hit me again.  This particular night started out torpidly, all seemed calm.  Then he began to drink and drink, and he drank.  After listening to the clamoring words spewing from his lips about me in front of colleagues, I decided to get in my pristine white SUV and drive to the home I knew I would no longer be occupying.  Once there, behind that closed red glossy door, he hit me again.  Fiercely. 

The irony in my freedom is that he had always thought he contained me, that I was his butterfly under glass.  How cliche.   That his threats and beatings kept me at bay under his broken, crippled wing.  But I knew there was always a way out, what I never knew was why it took me so long to free myself.  Jailed once before for a public display of domestic violence against me, he knew I would call the police to seek help and he would be jailed again - this time for 30 consecutive days.  I told him I was leaving, and never coming back.  Sometimes those brave words are a woman's last.  I was lucky.  After successfully breaking my cell phone in two, he immediately dialed 911 from his phone and uttered the following words, "there is a woman in my house, she said she would punch me in the face.  She punched me in the face".  A downright and dirty lie, I knew I needed to leave.  Leaving was no easy feat.  He barricaded the door, hid my keys and did far worse that is best left in that suitcase up in the dusty attic. Once the police arrived, they placed me under arrest (I was just getting to my car as I had escaped finally, he was on the verge of passing out due to intoxication).  I will never forget the feeling of the cold, hard and uncomfortable handcuffs on my wrists, trying to sit with my ankles together in the back of the police cruiser with it's frigid pleather seats, politely as to not cause my dress to ride up my legs in front of two police officers.  The night had been damaging enough. 

I sat in the back of that cruiser with an aching in my heart at the injustices I had suffered, and a fire in my belly to do whatever was necessary to get out.  The philanthropist in me vowed to help women everywhere; the silent victims that were afraid for their own lives. After being booked, having a mug shot taken, sitting in a Dollar Store plastic chair in a hauntingly freezing room with a man who was there for his 4th DUI, this Midwestern girl with only a few tickets on her record sat thinking about the rock bottom...and freedom.  After my one phone call to my mother, she called the judge who immediately set me free.  Two days later a group of 13 friends showed up at my old and picture-perfect four bedroom brick home and in 2 hours they cleaned house.  All of my things were in boxes, heading to storage.  I had a happy childhood and had never seen such acts to prepare me for a situation like that.  Perhaps that was the reason I never knew how to escape it.  The emergency protective order gives me "paper freedom" but room to always fear it's failure.  My immediate actions gave me realistic freedom as I removed the miscreant person from my life eternally. 

And, my mind has finally, two years later, given me some peaceful freedom in understanding that I never have to be controlled by anyone ever again. I am free to choose, I am free to love, I am free to survive.  And, survive I will.   I hope this story inspires any woman who utters the following about a man she thinks she loves, "He just flies off the handle.  His temper is terrible and he can get mad over the smallest thing.  He will hit me and say he'll never do it again, but he does.  When he's good, though, he's so great.  I love him."  Freedom from that type of onerous "love" opens your doors to intoxicating, real, fecund love.  I pray we all find just that, one day.