Fault

 A fault is fostered by concealment. --Virgil

 There's man all over for you, blaming on his boots the fault of his feet. --Samuel Beckett

The other night one of my closets friends came to me crying, currently going through a difficult time with a breakup. Instead of rage crying most of us are familiar with, she blamed herself for the difficulties her now ex-boyfriend had put her through, knowing full well what he did was wrong, but feeling responsible for him following through with his actions. Most of us would be appalled and tell her that, yes, she is being stupid because it isn't her fault and curse his name until it no longer held any meaning. But I couldn't bring myself to do that.

As she sat across from me, hiccuping and arms flailing, trying to finally verbalize the thoughts and emotions she had kept to herself since the relationship had ended, all I could see was myself, perhaps only two years ago, finally telling someone why I was so bitter and so unhappy, and why I couldn't just simply "get over it" because I felt it was my fault. The cheating, keeping me from my friends and family, demanding that I give up my education because it interfered with his life (and, hey, he got along just fine without college), telling me I was worthless, the only thing he would remember about me was having sex with me --the night after one of the many times he had broken up with me and gone out with another girl, had come home and tried to have sex with me while I was sleeping-- not paying for anything, yet telling everyone I was living off of him, yelling at me for something the dog had done, for something the government had done, sending him off to Iraq. For the American citizens not appreciating him the way he wanted to be when he came home.

I sympathized with his sense of loss and confusion, and blamed myself when he became enraged with me or treated me poorly because if I was a good girlfriend, a good person, he wouldn't be so unhappy with me. It took me years to accept that I was manipulated and taken advantage of, and that while the love I held for him at the time was genuine, his wasn't, that isn't what love is supposed to be. However, it's still difficult to accept that, being the stubborn and proud person that I am, I was shaped and controlled by someone other than me. At some point I had given up my free will in order to appease him, and it's frightening knowing that I'm capable of doing such a thing.

We look at these girls and we call them stupid and silly for not getting out sooner and putting up with behavior that they should know, and do know, is toxic. Perhaps the most haunting part of surviving an abusive relationship is simply surviving, knowing that at one point you were stupid and silly and the guilt and shame that comes with that realization. This isn't something where you tripped and fell or said something completely inappropriate, as embarrassing as those situations are, they pass and are forgotten with time. Abusive relationships do not. The memories always resurface when a new one is being foraged, "Is he a good guy, is he going to hurt me?" "Should I comply with what he says this time, is this a healthy compromise or am I falling into the same habit?" "He's angry, is it my fault?"

And not just with relationships, with everything. The loss of self often has me questioning what kind of person am I, can I be the person I want to be, and my own self worth. If I continue to look at myself as a victim I give up my agency and give him power, which is exactly the opposite of what I wish to achieve. But bearing the weight of everything that's happen to me is cruel, it's like excusing him for what he did and never having to suffer the consequences, and there's simply no excuse for his part of the ordeal. My scars aren't going to disappear because one drunken night he left a message saying "sorry and stuff" and that he reportedly feels badly about the way he had treated me.

The damage, there's so much of it. I suppressed much of it for so long because I simply could not function trying to piece it all together so soon after we had ended. I'd spend my days as busy as possible, in class and out with friends, and my nights gasping for air between sobs. It took a year, even with the help of family and friends, to build the mental stability necessary for me to face the shame and guilt that had built up over time and to finally tell someone that yes, I am a statistic, and this is what happened to me when I should have said "no."

What I do know is that my friend is stronger than me. Despite everything she's been through, she is still one of the sweetest and caring people I have met. While I sit embittered and wishing death upon my abuser, only now finding my life satisfactory three years later and thinking maybe one day I will be happy, she's smiling and loving, and moving on to the next chapter in her life.

Life After High School

Just a small town girl, livin’ in a lonely world.
She took the midnight train going anywhere. –Don’t Stop Believin’, Journey

I mentioned before that I used to live in a small city with a town mentality and moved to Seattle for a sense of self reinvention, amongst other things equally as important, but not my primary concern. It’s been two and a half years since I made the trek across the mountain pass in an SUV drawn U-HAUL and I still have a hard time accepting the fact that I live here, am staying here, and at this point have a right to call myself a Seattleite.

And yet here I am still boggling at taking an interstate to work every day, even the fact that I justify using the interstate in order to leave it at the second exit is something I never thought I would do.

And this, mind you, is just driving on I-5. Taking the bus downtown in the early hours of the morning watching the Space Needle travel in and out of sight, exiting at Westlake Station and joining the hoard of bodies grabbing their coffees and entering skyscraping office buildings—well, I’m sure you’d understand that I have a hard time describing my sense of awe. It was even worse when I traveled down there to meet up with a friend for lunch on their lunch hour.

Even worse when I worked at Pike Place Market over the summer. If there is anything more symbolic than the Space Needle, it would be Pike Place. So seeing the Needle in the morning and spending my day in the market? I tried not to think too hard about it so I wouldn’t implode.

Also, I can see the Space Needle from my bedroom. It’s tiny and partially obscured by the building next to my apartment complex, but I can still see it, and I grin wildly every time. (I can’t imagine how ridiculous I would be if I lived in New York and could see the Statue of Liberty on a daily basis.)

I’m wondering how long it will be until I stop caring that I’m here. I would venture to say never, considering how I’m still ridiculously sentimental over I-5 (of all things), but I felt the same way about UW once. Ambling through Red Square to Odegaard, sitting in the Quad during cherry blossom season, working at the HUB, and hearing the bell at Denny ring every half an hour…towards the end of my colligate career I forgot the sense of impressiveness UW gave me the first time I set foot on campus.

I took for granted what I was doing in my life when I know of so many others who are struggling to not quite make it back in my home town. They didn’t have the ambition or the drive, or maybe even the want to move out of the basement, to make anything more than minimum wage, and spend their days pretending to be in a metal band and popping people in the newest rendition of Grand Theft Auto, arguably the closest they’ll ever get to experiencing a life grander than what they know. It’s not as if they couldn’t where they are, but maybe it’s where they are that coddles them into being nothing. That doing something more or being something more than a dreg scares them into remaining at the bottom of the cup.

So I sit here, writing, not to be smug, but to be thankful. For who I am, what I am, and the opportunities I decided to take a chance on. For, most of all, realizing what I needed, even if it came calling in a parade of the worst transit design known in America, wrapped in a torrential downpour, and tied off with landmarks that still leave a twinkle in my eye. My life isn’t for everyone, and there are better lives than mine that I can’t wish to aspire to, but for now I need this city, it’s an addiction, and I hope it enthralls me for years to come.