A memory

It's been a year since I met him...and we're done again. we've been back and fourth four times...this is the end of the fourth...and hopefully the last...for my own safety and sanity it almost has to be.

But I just had a flashback to the first or second time around. We were talking, just casually talking and joking around. He said something about hitting or fighting or something like that. And I said that I'd never been in a fight before. He said, "So, you've never been hit before, like punched?" And I replied, "No. Of course not." He laughed and said, "Good. I'll be the first." I laughed and gave him a skeptical look as we did not know each other all that well at that point.

He saw my face and said, "I was just kidding," with his patented smile that has never failed to melt my heart even when I'm furious with him. I smiled back, unable to resist. And then he added, "Kind of."

At that point I never thought that he would follow through on the promise to be the first to hit me. That memory just came back to me as I was thinking about the past year. This past Friday marked exactly one year since our meeting, and my life has been turmoil ever since.

I really didn't think he would hit me. But he did. I've now been in a physical altercation (I'm not exactly sure it could be called a fight)...I've been punched. I've been brutalized emotionally in a way I never thought possible. I never thought I'd allow anyone to do that to me. But I did. He ruined a year of my life...in the worst possible ways. But I'm still standing. I survived. And I will continue to do so...I will thrive. I will move forward and be stronger for it. Never again will I be a victim...never again will I allow myself to be victimized.

Any time a man so much as jokes about hitting me...I'm turning around and heading in the other direction. End of story.