51

December 19, 2024

51

I feel like I should post an update, close this part of our story out.

The last week at the hotel, the toilet flooded the bathroom and soaked a lot of our clothes. We had to move rooms. I'm not certain what happened there, it came about while I was on a medical supply run for Aaron. At least it was apparently not our fault.

Aaron hadn't known toilets could do that, though. New concern unlocked.

So we moved to a room with a balcony, which was handy because the cost for the laundry machines had gone up and I could either wash or dry our toilet-y clothes, but not both.

I chose wash, and hung them on the balcony to dry.

Pretty soon though, it was time to move into our new place!

The housing coordinator came helped haul our things in her SUV.

For a while there, maybe a month or so, we were without furniture except our camp furniture. Aaron and I slept on our camp cots, and Joey slept on a pile of foam pads on the floor.

Then finally the movers came, and Aaron's bed, but not his mattress for some reason, and my bed and mattress. Two dressers, a drop leaf table, and a folding, horrible papasan that belonged to my ex partner.

Then we started to fill in the missing pieces with help from the Bryn Mawr Buy Nothing group. Joey got a mattress. We got kitchen chairs, and shelves. Also, a nice ottoman. Bridging supplied us with more furniture and housewares. Joey has mugs shaped like hedgehogs now.

I started to grapple with realizing how abusive my ex was. Not my monstrous ex, my most recent ex. He wasn't anywhere near as abusive as the monstrous ex, and he was no rapist as the monstrous ex is.

But he still was abusive. Still screamed and threw things. Still threatened to hit me on several occasions. I didn't clock that as abuse because I didn't believe he would hit me, but it was abuse. And he caused a serious sprained ankle by slamming a door on me.

When I realized he had a new girlfriend, my heart just shattered. I'd loved him for 18 years. I took care of him when he couldn't (or wouldn't) care for himself. I did his laundry and his shopping. When I was less ill myself I cleaned his house and often cooked him dinner at his house.

Later I just had him walk up the driveway on our shared lot and fed him at my house. I bought his groceries for the year he was without food stamps because the county royally screwed him over.

And he utterly broke my heart. The day I realized, I almost threw up from the shock.

And it was the best thing he could have done for me. He set me free and gave me the space to realize how badly he'd mistreated me.

I love him, but I don't want to see him. I don't want to talk to him. Very few abusers make meaningful changes to their abusive behavior; but I always believed he could. I still do, but he didn't do it for me.

But I'm happy now. The peace of not having to walk on eggshells is so beautiful. The kids and I have such a sweet, peaceful home. We just get along so well. I like them as people and they like me too.

We are safe, we are warm, we are housed.