fff#29 As much as I had loved him

For the background, see the posting before this one.

fff#29: as much/little as… (starter)

As much as I had loved him, I hate him now. I see his car–an unmistakable maroon Toyota with a silly, excessive spoiler at the back–and my stomach churns with disgust. I’m not stupid. (Well, maybe I am stupid. I was with him for five years, after all.) I know the disgust is as much for me as for him. I can’t believe all the things I put myself through to be with him. All the blatant rubbish I endured to call him mine. Mine? Never was. His lies and my complicity leave me bruised and tired now just thinking about him.

Inevitably, every time I think about him I think about how it ended: hearing from a third party that there was this other woman, incontrovertable evidence shoved in my face and hurriedly digested before a nasty confrontation between him, her and me. And even then, even then, as much as I hated him, I loved him still.

The message of the bat (for adult readers only)

I got this message from someone who read my blog. My epic struggle with Chester, the bat who terrorised me at home, touched a chord in her and she wanted to share her own bat story with me.

Warning: this post is on a very sensitive subject. It contains graphic language.

She wrote:

“When I was 30 I was raped and attacked by a man (I remain convinced it was the security guard who eyed me for days).  The long and short is that I was strangled for a while – just enough to almost lose consciousness and die.  I still will never know why he released the hold around my neck (I had black and blue imprints of his fingers around my neck for days……) or why in the end he agreed to leave me alone….I did some serious negotiating with him including getting him not to blindfold me as well as wearing a condom – in the darkness he actually let me feel his dick so that I was sure it was on……

“So with all the negotiating and treating him like a person he lost his desire to control me and left me on the bed naked, bruised and terrified….I lost chunks of my hair from the terror…..called the police after I allowed him enough time to leave (that was part of the deal I struck with this man)…….

“Some days later I went to my parents house – the family didn’t have a clue what to do with me…..and in the bedroom there was this bat – after opening up all the windows I hoped and hoped it had left…I went to sleep (was so exhausted)…..and woke up the next morning…..and guess what the bat was dead and ‘asleep’ on the pillow next to mine…..I think it came to teach me about facing my fears and the ugliness of what had happened to me…..I still don’t love bats but I do have a soft spot for them (at a distance……..) – I received a real blessing……and I remain grateful……”

Thanks, friend, for sharing that story. It doesn’t make me feel any more fond of bats but I value your decision to openly talk about that life-changing experience and what it teaches about fear. They say God doesn’t give you more than you can bear but sometimes it doesn’t feel that way at all. I’m glad to know you survived to tell the tale.

Las lap

I’ve been writing with the T&T Guardian since 1998, and writing a regular column there since maybe 2006. (Yes, you read it right…I’m not really sure how long it’s been. My record keeping sucks.)

This week marks the end of that relationship. From today I’m no longer a Guardian columnist or writer. I’m a former Guardian columnist and writer. Ha!

You can read it here.

As I explain in the column, I have moved on in order to administer The Allen Prize for Young Writers, the NGO I founded last year. I’ve been planning and plotting this move for a long time and I can’t wait. Yesterday I did a budget for the Prize and nearly fell through the floor at the amount of money we have to raise. But God is good and this is a worthy effort. I know I’ll get support–in fact, I already am getting support from the good people on my board and committees, and my friends and family.

So wish me well!