Manic Monday: Independence

This is my first Manic Monday post... Memories of my independence are mixed with great joy and fear of the unknown, and as I read some of the Manic Monday entries today, those feelings hit me once again.

A little while back I wrote about the stretch of time that occurred between me graduating from high school and meeting my husband, and to quote from part 3 of You Had Me At "You Kind Of Annoy Me" ,I talk about barely existing while waiting to start my new life in the Navy, months after graduation. I refer to the fact that my mother told me that she and the rest of my family had prayed and that GOD told them I was lying about being sexually abused by my real father, that I was sick and needed help, and that this was the reason why I was such a troubled child and such a burden to them:

I suffered through the holidays as best as I could, knowing that the end was in sight... just beyond my reach. I survived those last few days on pins and needles, excited about the unknown that stretched before me. I remember the night they took me to the airport with such clarity, I remember every facial twitch, every nervous gesture... None of them my own. By now, I was a master at masking my emotions, but inside I was ready to ignite!

My mother broke the silence.

"We believe you."

Squinting at my mother, I said a solitary,"What?"

"I said, we believe you."

I said nothing. I sat, I stared. Emotionless. Seemingly. Tears began to trickle down those stone cheeks of mine, and yet I never wavered.

My mother, taking my tears as a sign of some sort, started to cry hysterically. Was it sadness she saw, or forgiveness? Or maybe just weakness... I'll never know. It was if I was standing upon a precipice, and felt relief and joy knowing that I was about to take the jump. I murmured goodbyes, trying not to show my elation and agitation. I felt that old familiar feeling that at any moment she would pull the rug out from underneath of me.

As I walked through the boarding area, I never looked back. The next few hours would be spent with me being hit on by two older business men. As I flew from Maryland to Florida, I looked at pictures of their children, forced smiles at thinly veiled attempts by one of them to sound divorced, and accepted compliments, sexual innuendos, and business cards with home numbers scrawled on the back... simply because I had nowhere else to go.

What a way to start my new life.

I'll never forget that day. Never. It's as important to me, and is as much of a life altering, joyous moment as marrying my soul mate and finally having my daughters after years of infertility.

It was the first step in me claiming myself as a whole and separate person, and the first step I would take in standing up to my mother many years later. One day I would finally tell my mother she couldn't hurt me anymore with her words and her hands, and though the scars are still there from the past- mentally and physically- I tell her goodbye and try my hardest not to look back.