Superstition says that cats have nine lives due to their ability to survive things that would kill most people or other living creatures. While the "how" part of it can easily be explained through physics and laws of terminal velocity versus leaping tall buildings, we still have no explanation for the "why." Why some things survive better than other. Why some people live their lives knowing they're always one step away from falling upside down off a 10-story building and people naturally expect them to survive with little to no injuries.
I am currently in my ninth life. As of today. Nine years ago I kissed and said goodbye to the man who called me his wife, as he left our apartment on that early Thursday morning on his way to work. I remember the way I pleaded with god the night before, begging for a sign that maybe there was still hope. Asking the only prayer that I've ever been able to trust in "for a clear an unmistakable sign" that willingly jumping off this hundred-story building was really my pre-destined next step. I prayed for proof, rolled over to put my arm around the man I called my husband, and he shrugged me off and said "Get off me...." and grumbled back to sleep.
I knew I betrayed myself with that kiss the next morning. Everything in my escape plan said to continue with life as normal. Don't give yourself away. Don't divert from everything that makes sense. Don't blow it again because this is your last chance and if it doesn't work, there will be no falling gracefully and you will land as the first cat to not survive. I knew he had stopped loving me and respecting me long ago but I made a promise to love and cherish him to the end. Even when the end was a contemplation of taking my own life. It became a choice of me or him. Whose life was I willing to sacrifice? In the end, I realized I had already been sacrificed long before and had only been living as a ghost since then.
I left my ring and an 8-page letter on the dining room table. I told him I couldn't do it anymore. I told him he was abusive and I hated myself and my life and the way he hated me. But I still loved him. Even to the point of blowing my own cover and kissing him goodbye. It wasn't like me to walk him all the way to the door when he left for work and it eventually betrayed me when he came home early from work and found me quickly stuffing boxes into the back of my car.
I remember the paralyzing fear of seeing his truck pull in. Wondering if he was going to hit me. Wondering if he was going to scream at me. Wondering if he was going to take my keys and force me to stay. What I never expected... was for him to let me go. All the way down from the top of a thousand-story building. I had never fallen so far before in my life and had no idea what the ground would feel like or if I was even built to survive.
The fall broke all my legs as he stood there in the parking lot admitting he was abusive. And worse, that he knew all along. He said he didn't blame me. He said he would have left too if the situation was reversed. I always thought he was oblivious to what was going on and maybe if I just loved him enough, things might get better. But just like sin after redemption, you can't stand in light and justify going back into darkness. Not when you know the truth so clearly.
So I left.
I made a promise to God that day that if he got me out of there, no matter where, I would do whatever he asked of me. I know the last thing anyone should do -especially in a moment of desperation- is bargain with God. But this wasn't bargaining. This was entering into a covenant. I was hoping for something a little less severe than wandering the desert for 40 years but on some level, I wouldn't have been surprised.
I slept on a friend's couch for a few nights before I was able to get into the local battered women's shelter. it was a high security shelter for high-risk women since he was considered a "public figure" due to his job at a local radio station. The station I was supposed to work at until he said "There's only one celebrity in this family and it sure a f*** isn't gonna be you." The radio station where the ladies invited me to their knitting group to test their suspicions and milk me for information about what really happened behind closed doors. The radio station where the girls gathered around me and said "you can do this and you will survive and we'll make sure no one finds out this time when you try to leave." The radio station where he went to work the next day cursing and calling me a whore for leaving him and telling his office mate how horrible I was... and his office mate had the courage to be a man of God and say "I know she left. We helped her. And you deserve what happened."
The radio station where, four years later, I appeared as a guest speaker talking about domestic violence on a Christian program hosted by the woman who had so many times offered me a "celebrity" job and had no idea why I turned her offer down.
It's funny what redemption can look like.
It's been nine years today since life ended and began.
I said good-bye to our pet goldfish, William, who I wasn't allowed to feed. Good-bye to the back porch swing that overlooked the pool I wasn't allowed to swim in. Good-bye to the cozy romantic fireplace I wasn't allowed to use. Good-bye to the out-of-our-budget leather recliner I wasn't allowed to sit in, good-bye to the bed that always hurt my back, and good-bye to the shower where I went so many nights to hide the sound of my crying under the rush of running water.
Time gives amazing perspective and in retrospect, it's hard to see any sign of difficulty in deciding to leave a life of that kind. But a thousand falls later, I think what I mourned the most was the loss of hope. The thought that I was walking away from my only chance at happiness and love and everything God promised to good little girls who fell in love.
But I fell away. And maybe parting the Red Sea wasn't the way to save me. Maybe I needed this desert to give me enough time to think. Time to realize how far I'd fallen and why and how. But more than that, time to realize that people don't just fall from the outermost edge of earth's atmosphere and live to tell about it... multiple times. This isn't luck, this isn't a mistake and it damn sure isn't a law of physics.
This is what happens when you make a promise and it's time to collect.
Each year the world gets worse. But each year, my life gets better. Because I'm still here. I'm still standing and alive to talk about it.
This year, this last week, something terrifying happened. I realized that all these years, I have not been alone in the desert. I went from wandering to journeying to eventually running. But still not alone. And now I'm being called upon to hold up my end of the deal. I didn't ask anyone to follow me. I didn't ask to be a leader. I didn't ask for anything but a way out of captivity. Nevertheless, people followed. And I'm being asked to lead them.
I'm afraid I'll die before reaching a modern-day Promised Land, afraid of leading people astray. Afraid of what this desert might hold. But more than anything else, I am terrified to look behind me and seeing how many people followed. Terrified to look in their eyes and say "I'm sorry... I don't know why you're all here." Terrified of what they will say, of what will happen. Of how my world will be pushed off the edge of the tallest cliff I've ever seen when the reality sinks in that this isn't about me, it isn't a mistake, and like it or not, these people won't go away. If I run away again, they'll run with me. I know I have the strength to leave the darkness. I've done it a thousand times. It's staying in the light that's so hard, because that requires a belief that I was meant to be here.That my name is not "insignificant." I don't feel ready for that yet. But it's no longer my choice.
Happy Anniversary, Allie. Life just got very real.
