Urgency

“Writing my way out…”

A few weeks ago this blog was a dream.  Something I knew I wanted, but sometimes we need a little push and I always need a little SHOVE!

While I have not told friends or family for that matter my pen name, some know that I was interested in writing under a different name.

What I am writing is personal.  So much so that I do not want to discuss it with friends or family anymore than I already have.  I also don’t want it to affect my children.  I don’t want it to follow them. That is my main reason for the pen name.  Their privacy.  The story is important to be told.  Too many women live in emotional abuse and domestic abuse situations: 48.4% of women and 48.8% of men have experienced at least one psychologically aggressive behavior by an intimate partner.*

My abuse has never been physical.  An occasional scuffle — a minor scratch or tiny bruise.

My hair has been pulled and yes he has looked me in the face and threatened to punch “my flat nose” as he called it.

But have I not pushed him out of frustration…? I’m not here to point the finger so much as present a situation.

And as I write so casually about this abuse I am saddened to even be in this situation.  I know that is universal — I know I am not alone there.

All that passion we had to have those fights is now dead.

Since just before NYE 2016, he, my husband, a word that sounds more foreign than you can imagine, has barely spoken a word to me.

He has spoken to the children, friends, my parents (if addressed), played with the kids and answered an occasional “yes”, “no” or “what?”

For me, this has driven my work because it was already lonely.  I had already spent the last couple months at least crying spontaneously at lovers and happy families and people who expressed love to one another.  We had already not had sex in over a year and if I ask myself if we ever made love the way I knew love-making to be… then never.

So 8 years of this.  This attempt at a combination that produced two beautiful, brilliant and caring children.

Urgency.

Children.

Children.  Urgency.

It is because of them things seem to be connecting during my Jesus Year.

My goals are big, they are my goals.

I need to get out.

But in assessing the situation, getting out to rent a place and move yet again with my children feels like I’m adding to their chaos.  Plus I don’t have the finances to do even that.

I would like to buy.  To buy what we need for our future.  So I may continue working as a writer and so my children have a home.

I have student debt. I have at least $300K in student loan debt.  

Tack on the interest and minimum monthly payments and you have at least $500K that I will pay off.

You can’t buy a house with bad credit.

I have about $1,500.00 in credit card debt, so most people would say my issue is not so bad.

Student loan debt is good debt (That’s another post for another time).

Urgency.

So I’m here with this blog that I built myself with some of the last money I had.

We haven’t had a joint bank account since early 2016 and one of my accounts recently closed for an extended overdraft period.

There is a lot to this story, but I will tell it— because it needs to be told.

Because I know I’m not the only one.

Because this week I finally started an application for S.N.A.P. (Aka Food Stamps) because I see no other way out.

So I’m writing my way out.

NCADV. (2015). Facts about domestic violence and psychological abuse. Retrieved from www.ncadv.org