I’m at a writer’s residency, and Reed has been at my parents’ house. He is headed back to his dad’s tomorrow.

“Are you excited to go back to your dad’s?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Are you sad to be leaving your grandparents?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said again.

Then he said, “I guess I just wish I was going home to you.”

And my heart broke.

After reading my writing, the first question that people always ask me is Does your son still see his father?

My answer is usually followed by the question Does your ex-husband…….? They can never say fully say it, but I know what they’re getting at, and I always answer, “My ex-husband doesn’t abuse our son.”

What I have learned is that sometimes abusers are women abusers but not child abusers, or child abusers but not women abusers. Sometimes abusers are some other variation of abuser that is neither of those things.

But what I have found myself saying lately is, “My ex-husband does not abuse our son, but my son still prefers to be with me because my ex-husband is a dick.”

It’s probably not the most articulate way of describing my family situation, but it’s all that I have.

Sometimes I feel judged because I haven’t fought harder to get sole custody of my son.

There are a few reasons for this:

One is that I don’t think I could get it (many states don’t factor domestic violence perpetrated on the mother into custody decisions).

Another is that Reed loves his dad and doesn’t want to hurt his dad’s feelings, and I believe in respecting Reed’s wishes.

And the final is that I enjoy the time that I have alone.

I am always amazed by how much pressure our society puts on single mothers to want to be the sole providers for our children.

The truth is that I  want to have 50/50 custody with my ex-husband. I adore my son, but single parenting is hard, and if we had 50/50 custody, then maybe I wouldn’t feel so alone in this.

The truth is also that I know that I can’t have 50/50 custody with my ex-husband becaus my ex-husband is simply not fit for 50/50 custody.

The truth is also that, if my son ever wants to live with his dad full-time, I will absolutely respect that decision, but I know that is never going to happen.

I am always going to be doing this primarily on my own, and that was never part of my plan.

I crashed and lost consciousness when I was in labor with Reed. Caleb was holding my hand, and I said, “I feel funny.” I could see the fear in his eyes, then I heard a loud beeeeeep, and saw nothing but darkness.

When I woke up, the first thing I saw was my mother standing at my feet.

The look in her eyes. The terror. I’ll never forget it.

The first thing I said–whimpered really–was, I’m sorry.

The anesthesiologist had to shoot ephedrine into me, and then, my heart rate was up to 170 beats per minute for the remainder of the labor.

It was as though I was running a marathon, and I kept apologizing the entire time. I was so sorry for the ways in which I was inconveniencing everyone around me.

I was so, so sorry.

That is how I feel during the school year. My heart is racing, racing, racing, and I cannot come up for air.

I am always so sorry for the things I ask of other people.

I always want to be able to do it on my own, and I can’t.

The summer is when I finally breathe.

I want to be able to breathe.

Last week, I flew into Seattle and spent a few days with two of my friends from before Caleb. We drank wine, hot-tubbed, and reminisced. We talked about the men we had known from our time together. We cyber stalked those men. We went to the beach, and I got a sunburn that is still peeling now.

The friend that we stayed with has a really wonderful husband who I am very fond of, and they have created an equitable life together. My other friend has the same kind of relationship.

I want that kind of relationship.

I am the loner. Always.

I was the loner before I met Caleb too. Talking to my friends reminded me of this.

Maybe that is why he targeted me. Maybe that is why he saw something vulnerable in me.

Still, my friends seem to trust me. They trust that I am doing the right thing, and they trust that I am going to be okay.

Their trust inspires me to want to earn it.

I want to be better at this than I am.

I want to end up with a person who respects me. Who treats me like an equal.

And who adores me.

And maybe, finally, I am understanding that I might be alone because of those wants.

I guess that’s okay too, although being alone is not my first choice.

But the truth is also that maybe being alone is my first choice. I love the life that I have. I am at a writer’s residency where I am being fed delicious meals prepared by a nutritionist. Tonight, I went for a long jog on a beautiful road through a forest while Mount Rainier peeked through the trees. I came back to the residency and talked to my new friends before taking a shower, and now, I’m sitting in the library alone, hogging the WiFi, and writing this blog post.

A week ago, I was doing this:

It is summer. I am breathing, and I am living the life that everyone dreams of.

Everyone wants the life that I have now.

But it can’t last.

In a month, I will be racing, racing, racing again.

Still, I have had more training.

I might tire, but I have more stamina.

My heart can handle it now.

I have so much to say.

When I was still in the hospital after I had Reed, I watched The History Channel. There was a documentary about the Jonestown Massacre. I nursed my new baby and watched dozens of people poison themselves in front of me.

I still can’t change the channel.

I sent my final draft of my book to my editor tonight. After this, it goes to the copy editor. I’m proud of this book. It was the book that I wanted to write, but writing this book has been isolating.

I spent the past few days with friends in Washington, and I did many dippy things. I almost got in the wrong car. I went to the wrong restaurant door. I put my groceries in the wrong cart.

My friends laughed and teased me because they’ve known me for a long time, but I think that we all realized that I’m more absentminded than usual, that I have been living in my head for too long.

Still, I had the most wonderful time with these friends of so many years. It is so easy to be with them, and having friends who have known me both pre and after Caleb is validating to my sanity. Their friendship helps me to remember that I am okay.

And here is where I’m going to bring something up that I’ve never brought up before in my writing. I haven’t brought this up because I haven’t wanted to plant any seeds of doubt about my own mental health, but I think that I’m in a place where I can be honest.

Caleb’s excuse for why he abused me is because he claims that I have Borderline Personality Disorder.

First of all, to be clear, I do not have Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). My own therapist has reassured my very anxious self that I don’t even come close to that diagnosis, but that if I did, it would be something we would work on.

Second of all, BPD would not excuse the physical abuse (which Caleb doesn’t deny).

Still, Caleb’s anger management therapist, Charlie, suggested this diagnosis to him. These suggestions were strictly based upon what Caleb had told Charlie about me. As far as I know, Charlie never asked to meet me.

Caleb’s other therapist, Ed, did ask to meet me, then said, “Caleb, she is not what you led me to believe she is.”

Months later, I would call Ed and tell him how Caleb had been physically abusive. Ed would ask me, “Kelly, why are you telling me this?” And I would hear the doubt in his voice. I would hear the She’s crazy voice coming through the phone.

But when my own voice cracked, and I said, “Because I thought that maybe you could help him change,” I also heard Ed realize that I was authentic. He told me that he would try and get Caleb to confront the truth of what he had been doing.

Caleb quit seeing Ed after that.

Still, for so long Caleb had me convinced that I was what he thought I was.

Once, shortly after I had left him, Caleb and I were talking on the phone. He was living at his parents’ house and using their landline. He told me that I had chased him with a knife. He told me that he had run outside of our dorm apartment in his underwear to escape me.

I was so confused, had no recollection of this happening, so I asked him questions because it never occurred to me that he was lying.

After all, why would someone lie about such a thing?

I said, “When?”

“Why” ”

“How?”

He hung up on me.

After thinking about it some more, I finally called him back. The dorm apartment that we had been living in required keycard access with our IDs.

I was not trying to be clever. I was only confused, but I said, “If you were in the hallway in your underwear, then how did you get back in? Wouldn’t you have needed me to let you in?”

He screamed and hung up the phone.

I later realized that he was taping our phone calls, that he was hoping to get me to admit to something awful, so that he would not be the only one who had committed awful misdeeds.

At the time, I went to my friend Rebecca’s house where Reed and I were staying, and I told her what he had said. I said, “I think that he might be delusional. I’m so worried about him.”

She said, “He’s like a robot, and his wires are malfunctioning.”

I have recently realized that I need to spell some of this stuff out for certain folks, so here it is: Caleb was lying in order to manipulate me. He knew my weaknesses and wanted to convince me that I was “crazy” as a way of justifying his own abuse.

Loosely related: trauma reactions can seem a lot like personality disorder behavior.

My friend who I stayed with for the past few days is a Dialectical Behavioral Therapist, so she treats a lot of people with BPD.

We were talking about trauma recovery, and she had some really good suggestions for me. When the time comes, and if my finances allow, I think that I would like to do exposure therapy with someone she recommends.

But that exposure therapy would be to treat my trauma–not this mythological BPD that Caleb claims I have.

Caleb’s mother has been unusually kind to me lately, and I can’t tell why. It’s probably because Caleb is remarried and has another baby. It’s probably because she feels sorry for me.

Still, what I like to tell myself is that she’s kind to me because she’s had enough time to see Reed grow and realize that I’m not what Caleb says I am. I’m a good mama to Reed. He is thriving with me, is always on the honor roll, and has lots of friends.

I don’t ever badmouth Caleb, but Reed still prefers to be with me because his dad is angry most of the time, and Reed is now used to a calm household.

Reed didn’t notice his dad’s anger when he lived with it all of the time, and though I’m sad that he notices it now, I’m also relieved that he’s not desensitized to it.

When a man you love spends years telling you that you’re crazy, that is not an easy mythology to escape. I have not yet escaped that mythology, and I don’t have any answers.

All I can offer is an It happened to me too.

My friends walked me to the ferry the other day, as I left for a writer’s residency. I hugged them–these two women who have known me for so long–along with my friend’s adorable toddler and kind husband. I felt grateful for the years that we’ve shared, the lives that we’ve ended up with.

I felt grateful for all of the people who love me despite what I’ve been through, and despite the ways that what I’ve been through has changed me.

Still, though I have changed, I am not, and never will be, what he says I am.

I will only ever be the person that I am.

Caleb is moving. I have no idea why he’s moving. He says that it’s for a “better job,” but he’s moving from Morgantown to Charleston, West Virginia, and I don’t think that anyone could see that as an upgrade. Also, when I asked him about this new position, he told me to “go fuck [myself]” so my inclination is to think that he’s not happy because he would be smug if he was happy.

Tonight, at dinner, my friend said “Well, this is what he did to you. He knocked you up, then moved you away.”

And she was right.

I was having dinner with my friend Mo tonight because I’m at a writer’s residency in Vermont, and every night here is dinner with friends.

Today, I told another friend–a new one–that the condition of my life in Athens is one of loneliness. I am so often lonely. I told my new friend that, while I enjoy my solitude, I do not enjoy loneliness.

This friend and I went to the gym, and we both worked out hard. Then, we changed into our swimsuits and swam in a swimming hole in the river. The current was fast, and I got swept into it, grew scared, then panicked. I have had some bad experiences in the river in my hometown, and, like Caleb’s fists, those experiences have made themselves at home in my body.

My new friend saw me panicking, jumped back into the water. She put her arm around me, guided me to a quieter current where I was still panicking, and then, she looked me in the eyes and said, “Put your feet down.”

I listened, and I could stand.

After that, I waded across the fast current, then swam and climbed on to a large, beautiful rock where I sunned myself next to my friend.

I laid down.

Closed my eyes.

Opened them again and stared into the light.

I have discovered that the light everywhere is different. Every time I go somewhere I love, I think that it has the most beautiful light.

Before Vermont, that place was New Mexico.

I am in love with light, but I am also in love with newness.

This evening, I FaceTimed with Reed while I was at the laundromat. He mentioned that people had looked at his dad’s house, and it occurred to me that I could look up the listing–could see into their home.

I told myself not to do it, but I did it.

So much of me is still in that house.

The big things–the floors, the paint colors. The kitchen that I designed, right down to the custom ordered countertops.

The mirror in the downstairs bathroom that I had chosen. The kitschy chandelier in the dining room that I had found at Ikea.

The baskets on the wall in the kitchen that I had bought to hold our mail (constant bills) discretely.

I saw Reed’s bedroom. A toy that Caleb and I bought him for Christmas when he was four or five is still in there. He’s almost a teenager now.

And I saw their bedroom, which was the same bedroom that I had shared with Caleb. It looked different in ways, but one thing was the same–the floors. They are the same black that I once painted. I sat on that floor and swept the roller brush–then followed up with touch-ups from the regular brush. I painted those floors because I thought that they would offer us a new beginning.

I painted those floors because I thought that, if Caleb and I had a beautiful home, we would have a beautiful family.

I made that house beautiful because I couldn’t make my marriage beautiful. I couldn’t make Caleb beautiful. I couldn’t make myself beautiful.

When I left Caleb, we were living in the first-floor apartment of a dormitory. I moved back into our house, which, at the time, was being rented by my friend, Rebecca. I was surprised to find that she and her partner had taken up residence in Reed’s former room. Perhaps they had sensed the darkness in the room that Caleb and I had shared.

I stayed in the room that Caleb and I had shared on a twin mattress on the floor. I was surrounded by tubs full of Rebecca’s stuff.

On that mattress, I was so close to those black floors.

I read books about abuse. I argued with Caleb on the phone. I sobbed to my best friends on the phone. I took an Ambien at 8 because, maybe then, I would fall asleep by 11.

I woke up in the morning and drove my little boy to the bus stop. It was just down the road, but I couldn’t walk because I had to wear a boot for my injured foot.

On the mornings when I had to teach at 8:30, Rebecca walked Reed to the bus stop. I know that Reed enjoyed those times–that Reed–though he probably hardly remembers her–still loves Rebecca as a surrogate mother. During that period, she was his surrogate mother because I was absent in almost every way possible.

I don’t love Caleb anymore.  Not even a little bit.

One day, I checked my horoscope, but I didn’t check his, and I knew that I had moved on.

Writing about how much I loved him is hard now for so many reasons. I don’t want to remember those feelings. I don’t feel those feelings anymore and have a hard time understanding them now. I don’t want to justify those feelings. I don’t want to relive those feelings. I don’t want to be angry at myself for those feelings.

Feelings are pretty much the worst, and the love that one has felt for an abusive man kind of tops the list of worst feelings.

At dinner tonight, I told my friend about how I had looked at Caleb’s house listing online. When we divorced, I let him keep that house in exchange for his retirement. He was young, and his retirement was nowhere near what the value of the house was.

My lawyer told me, “He can pay you every month for his part of the house,” but I didn’t want–couldn’t even imagine–having that kind of contact with him. Caleb had told me that, if I wanted him to compensate me for the house, he would have to just sell it and move into a trailer somewhere.

I worried about Reed. My own issues with having been raised lower middle-class kicked in. I let Caleb keep the house.

Maybe they’re moving, so that his new wife no longer has to live in my shadow. One thing that I learned from looking at that house listing is that my shadow is in that home:

The shadow of me crying.

The shadow of me screaming.

The shadow of me raging.

The shadow of me fighting.

The shadow of me running.

The shadow of me leaving.

How will she ever live outside of my shadow?

At dinner, I told my friend that I had looked at that real estate listing. I told her that I had worried about being triggered, but I did it anyway. I told her that I was fine when I looked at it. I told her that I was fine because, look at my life.

I told her that my goodwill towards Caleb usually only extends as far as my goodwill towards my own life, and right now, I’m really happy with the life that I live.

Today, I slept in, then had a meal prepared for me by a chef. I swam in a river with a friend who calmed me when I panicked. I listened to artists and writers talk about their work in intelligent ways. I did not work on my book because I know that my agent and editor are on vacation, so why can’t I vacation?

The truth is that my life with Caleb never really felt like home. It was intoxicating and addicting, but never comfortable.

I am at home here in Vermont.

I am at home in the house I share with Reed.

I am at home in so many places, but I was never at home in that house in Morgantown–the one that I worked so hard to turn into a home.

I didn’t realize that the reason my house in Morgantown wasn’t a home had nothing to do with the house, or my decorating or design.

That house wasn’t a home because Caleb was in it.

It is late, and I am in my writing studio at the Vermont Studio Center. I haven’t checked on my hair, or makeup, or appearance since I left my house this morning. During the time since I’ve left my room, I’ve walked probably six miles and also cried a little bit.

I just went to the bathroom, looked in the mirror, and realized that my hair is a mess and my face is bare. Still, I felt comfortable. I actually thought that I looked pretty good.

And the truth is that no one here cares what I look like.

Don’t get me wrong. Everyone here is attractive in that particular way that artists are attractive, but no one here seems to care about their attractiveness, and there is something beautiful about that.

At the beginning of this summer, I was spending most of my time with a person who fixates a lot on her own appearance. She is a good person with a good heart, but the end result of our friendship was that I was fixating on my own appearance. I was getting my eyebrows waxed. My bikini waxed. Buying brow pencils. Looking at the folds on my stomach.

She said she was a pig.

I was the same size.

Was I a pig?

Am I a pig?

I grew to hate myself in a way that I hadn’t hated myself in a long time. I put Retin-A on my skin. I subscribed to “boxes” that would send me the latest beauty products. I had my hair highlighted.

In the same time period, my hips gave out on me, and I was no longer able to exercise like I had been.

The friendship ended, as friendships sometimes do.

It all felt very hopeless.

I was a pig.

I would never be anything but a pig.

I worked to find other friends. It is summer, and many of my academic friends are gone, I made two really good friends at the gym.

The other day, I was talking to one of them, and I needed to change into my gym clothes. “I am modest,” I said. She said, “Would you like me to turn around?”

“No,” I said, but as I changed shirts, I felt self-conscious because my body has been a war zone, and though that is not visible when I am wearing clothes, it is visible when I’m naked.

I hate my body because it has been a war zone.

How can I ever expect someone else to love my body when it has not been their war zone?

Once, when Caleb was in Greece, and my mother had come to help me with Reed, she brought up my weight gain.

“Caleb doesn’t care,” I said.

She looked at me with pity, “Oh, honey,” she said, “He cares.”

She was wrong though.

Caleb wanted me to be overweight, and I believe this.

He had always felt inadequate, had felt that I was more attractive than him. If I was overweight then he didn’t have to worry about me leaving him for someone else.

So he fed me–plumped me. He fed me everything I desired, but he also held me by the throat.

Once, Caleb looked at me and said, “You are the ugliest woman I have ever dated.”

I have done so much to change my life, but my body still has the scars of my life with Caleb.

My friend who was absorbed with her own appearance told me, “Use your student loans to get a tummy tuck! You can get a breast lift at the same time!” She said, “I will drive you!”

I seriously thought about it.

Then, I said, “I’d rather just find a partner who is okay with me the way that I am.”

She looked at me as though she didn’t understand.

It has been four years, and I haven’t found that person. Maybe that’s why she doesn’t understand.

Who am I to think that I might find someone who loves my  broken body?

But the difference between my friend and me is that, though she will, I’ll never meet the criteria of a standard American beauty.

And maybe that’s freeing for me.

I am already flawed in too many ways for the shallow guys. If someone is going to love me, they’re going to love me for who I am, so I won’t have to get face lifts, or tummy tucks, or breast lifts.

I don’t know if that person exists, and it’s a bummer if they don’t, but I have created a life for myself where I’ll be happy either way. And that is all that I can do, right?

A man hurt me, and he hurt me badly, but, though he might try, I am doing my best to keep him from owning me forever.

When I saw my messy hair and clean face in the mirror this evening, I didn’t hear his voice. Instead, I heard my own voice piping in.

My voice said, “You look pretty.”

I have written a lot about the English department where I am getting my PhD. I have found some of my greatest joys in this department. I adore my dissertation advisor who has been so kind and stable for me, but has also helped me to grow as a writer in an infinite number of ways. I know that I would not be the writer that I am today if I did not have this advisor. And then, there are so many other faculty mentors that I have grown under.

There is my Postcolonial/Transnational professor who taught me about shame, and inarticulation, and generational trauma. I received my first book offer while on break from his three hour graduate seminar, and I was shaking. at the end of class, he said, “May I give you a hug?” And it was the kindest thing that he could have done because I wanted that hug.

There are others, but I don’t want to single them out because my department is so divided right now that I cannot draw attention to the generosity of certain faculty members without incurring the jealousy/anger of other faculty members who have not, as of late, been on the right side of history.

And in this situation, yes, there is a right side and a wrong side.

There is more information in the case against the predatory professor in my department. None of this information comes as a surprise to me, but it has finally hit the news.

I really can’t single out a quote from that article, but here are some highlights: There is a seventh Title IX complaint against Escobedo–this time from a faculty member. The complaint alleges that the faculty member reported the harassment to the then-departmental chair, Joe McLaughlin, who dismissed the allegations and said that, Escobedo was “just like that.”

Perhaps, most telling is that the climate survey from 2006 (which the department had sent out in response to a complaint about Andrew Escobedo’s sexual harassment) that had disappeared has mysteriously surfaced (Surprise, Escobedo had it!), and the survey shows that a majority of the female graduate students in the department did not feel safe.

How am I not supposed to feel betrayed by all of this? How am I supposed to feel safe in this environment?

I am at the Vermont Studio Center on a fellowship stay. It has been lovely so far. I have a room, and a gorgeous studio with a riverfront view. They make us such good food, and everyone is so nice. I am surrounded by visual artists and writers, and I feel understood.

Yesterday, I was sitting in my studio, and it hit me very suddenly that I did not feel stressed. I could not think of the last time that I did not feel stressed. So much has happened to me in the past few months–I turned in my book, I messed up my hips from overexercise, and I had to move from one home to another.

None of that even broaches what I’ve dealt with in my personal life.

Today, I slept until late into the morning. I skipped breakfast, got a cup of coffee, walked around, then went to lunch.

At lunch, a woman and I compared PhD programs. She said, “Well, you know that you have a domestic abuser as a PhD student there, right?”

I stopped, fork in mid-air. “Do you know what I’m writing about?” I asked.

She looked at me and said, “No, why?”

And then she told me the story, and I will not write it here because it is not my story to tell, but it is bad, and it is as bad as my own, and my heart hurts so much that these stories keep finding me.

So I came back to my studio, and I texted a friend who had been involved with the abuser, and I told her that I had something to tell her, which I planned on telling her in person, and of course she asked that I call her immediately, which I did, and she then told me things that validated what the other woman had told me.

And my heart hurts–not because I care about the abuser (he was a friendly acquaintance, but not a friend), but because I am tired.

I am a part of this little community, and it is so divided, and that division hurts, and it is going to get worse now.

After my phone conversation, I chatted with my best friend for a while. I wrote to her about what I had heard, about how much that upset me.

She wrote to me that I need to give myself permission to not worry about that stuff while I am on my residency.

I wrote her that being here, and not feeling stressed, has given me time to think (and I have only been here for a day!) I wrote that I have realized that being in my department is like being in another abusive relationship.

She, unsurprised, wrote back that she agreed.

Eight faculty members voted for Escobedo to keep his tenure.

Hallmarks of an Abusive Relationship:

Imbalanced Power Dynamic: My department has a voting block on the faculty that folks call the “Evil Eight.”

Isolation: Grad Students whose faculty mentors were part of the Evil Eight were implicitly or explicitly instructed not to involve themselves in movements to get rid of Escobedo, and there was real risk involved. (Losing the recommendation of a dissertation advisor is a death blow in academia.)

Diminishment: One of the Evil Eight questioned whether what a poet claimed was rape was really rape? Then, when the students said he was sexist, he responded by bringing all of the women individually into his office and and interrogating them as to who had turned him in. And then there are the micro-agressions–such as the female professor who left a card in my mailbox that said that they “didn’t know.”

Escalation: One of the Evil Eight snidely commented on a FB post of mine where I had named no names, “Are you being targeted directly? If so, you should file a Title IX report.” Later, another of the Evil Eight told me in the stairwell, “I gave you something you wanted,” (as though I should have been grateful for getting a scholarship that I earned). This is only what I received. I can’t imagine what the victims themselves survived.

Qualification: The excuses from The Evil Eight who said, He’s an alcoholic! Think of his family! The same professor who questioned a student’s rape said this for an on-the-record article about the predator, “People who claim to be certain about how much culpability is involved in the case, or about its fairest outcome, might be overconfident of their own righteousness,”

And here is where I’m going to get real: DON’T TELL ME THAT YOU DIDN’T KNOW. YOU FUCKING KNEW.

These white, middle-class faculty members living in comfort, had their worlds disrupted because they have a predator in their midst. That’s not cool,  but there is no way that they didn’t know.

I knew. All of the other graduate students knew. Faculty in other departments knew. Students in other departments knew. Townspeople knew.

Seriously, everyone knew.

If, at this point, you didn’t know, then you need to interrogate your own reality.

This is what I said to one faculty member who had been friends with Escobedo, but claimed that he “didn’t know”: “Did you really not know, or were you just participating in rape culture so much yourself that you didn’t see it?”

He said, “You know, you’re right.”

But the thing is that this guy had already established himself as being on the right side. He had already cut off his friendship with Escobedo. He had already done the necessary work of being an ally.

But I am here, still agitating, and I’m tired. I get the cold shoulder from faculty in the hallway. It’s either the cold shoulder or the overly friendly, “HELLO!”

I get passive aggressive cards in my mailbox, but more than anything, I achieve things that I know my department will never acknowledge. I also apply for awards that I know my department will bend over backwards not to give me. So I quietly delete OU from my Facebook profile. I don’t mention them in my bios. I won’t be thanking them in the acknowledgments of my book, though I will, with all gratitude, be thanking my advisor and committee.

I want to write something beautiful to sign off here, but I don’t have anything to offer. Sometimes, people look to me for something, and all I can offer is my very flawed self, eating an apple cider donut in my studio at 2 am.

Wisdom forthcoming.

A year ago at this time, I was in Belgium. It was one of the loveliest periods of my life. I was readying to see some friends, then travel to San Francisco to stay and write in Rebecca Solnit’s beautiful home for two weeks.

When Rebecca had offered to let me stay in her home, I hesitated because I knew that, during that same time period River Guide was going to be in my hometown.

I knew that, when River Guide was in town, we would pretend to be a couple.

River Guide and I made a good pretend-couple. Maybe that’s why we did it for three summers in a row.

I knew that I couldn’t turn down an opportunity like two weeks in Rebecca Solnit’s home for a guy who was only my pretend-boyfriend.

I knew that I had to place my own needs first.

He came to see me anyway. We sat by the river.

He said, “I don’t know what we’re doing.”

The other day, I went to a pub with my friend at 4 in the afternoon. We were going to have a beer and work. We took our laptops. Then, another friend joined us, and we closed the laptops. We had another beer. We ordered some nachos but not dinner.

At 9pm, I had the idea to text a guy that I knew. At 10:00 pm, the pub closed, and he said, “I am going to walk you home.” I cuddled up to his arm while he pushed his bike. He came in, visited with my pets, then left, and I went to bed.

Later, I told my mother the story.

She said, “You two need to talk about what you are doing.”

I told my best friend more of the story, and she said, with genuine fatigue in her voice, “You are bending over backwards to make excuses for this guy.”

On Saturday, I finished my first round of book revisions. I worked in the bakery where I often go. I added some scenes with my parents in the final chapters, and I started weeping.

I furtively wiped away tears in the corner.

I hit the end of my writing and thought, This is good.

I hit “send” to my editor.

And then I felt this intensity of emotion that I can’t explain. I couldn’t tell if I was happy or sad. Only that I felt euphoric and miserable. That I wanted to break into sobs. That I wanted to run a marathon.

Mostly, I felt grief.

I thought, I have to let this story go. 

I thought, I have to move on now.

I thought, I have to move on by myself

I thought, I am all alone in this.

I went to the grocery store. I stood in line in a fugue state.

I was completely out of it when I heard, “Hey, Kelly.”

It was the guy who had walked me home the week before. I told him that I had turned in my book and was feeling a little overwhelmed. He asked if I was going to go out and celebrate.

I hesitated for a long while, thought of what my friend had said about me bending over backwards, then said, “I have not really thought about it.”

He said, “Well, if you want to meet up, I will celebrate with you.”

I said, “I will think about it.”

I texted him when I got home.

We sat in my backyard and talked. Fireflies danced in the bushes. A fat Mimosa tree hung blossoms above our heads.

He said, “You said that your book is personal, and it’s a sad story, and I know that it’s a memoir, so I don’t want to pry, but is this about recent events?”

And then, I told him my story. I told him about why I decided to write my story. I told him that I wanted to write about how I stayed out of love, and not fear.

He said, “Everyone must be really happy for you.”

“Everyone, but my ex-husband,” I said.

“Fuck that guy,” he said.

I didn’t tell him that, during the week before, Caleb and I had argued. Caleb is moving, and I had asked him for details. Because we share custody of Reed, he’s legally required to disclose those details, but he wouldn’t share.

I said to Caleb, “I think that you hiding this information is an abusive tactic that is intended to make me feel powerless.”

He said, “Yeah, you just go fuck yourself.”

I broke into angry sobs. I was angrier at myself than I was at him. I was angry at myself for caring.

But what I realized is that it is not normal to tell another adult, no matter who that person is, to go fuck themselves. I realized that no one in my life would talk to me that way now, but that, for so many years, I lived with a man who talked that way to me almost daily.

I realized that I have been blessed with an opportunity for reinvention.

I realized that I have been blessed with an opportunity for safety.

Reed told me that, after Caleb told me to go fuck myself, his new wife took Caleb outside.

I wondered how she felt about being married to a man who tells his ex-wife to go fuck herself.

I knew that she probably thought that I had brought it upon myself.

I knew that this move will likely isolate her. I knew that she will be away from her friends and family now.

I knew that her time was coming.

In my backyard, I told that guy, “I live in a really calm home now. My son and I get along great, and we live in a quiet way.”

He looked back at my house, at the double french doors that lead into the dining room, at the wooden deck with a grill on it, at the pond in the corner of the yard, at the lawn chairs. He held out his arm and motioned to all of it.

He said, “What you have done is incredible. You really have your shit together.”

I had to cut off communication with River Guide. I couldn’t be friends with him. I told him in January after Reed and I had dinner with him in Salt Lake City. When I had hugged him goodbye, Reed had said, “Mom, you stood on your tiptoes for him.”

River Guide and I had one more communication in April–a friendly text exchange, just to let each other know that we were doing okay.

I will always care about him, and maybe that’s the problem.

All I know is that I needed to put my own needs first.

When the guy who visited the other night got up to leave, I said, “Are you sure that you don’t want another beer?”

He looked at me for a while, then said, “I deliberately didn’t ice my shoulder, so that I wouldn’t be tempted to stay.”

I thought, I don’t know what we’re doing.

The next day, my friend said to me, “What do you want?”

I said, “I want four weeks away, so that I don’t have to think about this.”

I thought, but did not say, I want to be the type of person who doesn’t bend over backwards to make excuses for someone.

Tomorrow, I leave for a two-week writer’s residency at Vermont Studio Center. Shortly after I return, I leave for another two-week writer’s residency at Mineral School. By the end of those four weeks, my book should be going into production.

And then, I can move on. I can start a new project.

Maybe I can finally have closure.

Still, no matter how much things stay the same, my life keeps growing, keeps blossoming outwards.

Maybe I can finally have closure, but more likely, it will be an opening.

Reed said, “I don’t think I’ll ever have a stepdad.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I think you’re just going to always be single,” he said.

“Why do you think that?” I asked.

“Because I’ve heard you say that.” he said.

Then he got very serious, and he said, “But I feel like you would be afraid. I have a hard time imagining that you would want to try that again after what happened with my dad.”

Reed is usually right.

I am afraid, and at this point, I don’t even know what I’m afraid of.

Am I afraid of being alone? Am I afraid of being with someone? Am I afraid of being with the wrong person? Am I afraid of being with the right person? Am I afraid of being a failure? Am I afraid of being successful? Am I afraid of not getting an academic job? Am I afraid of getting an academic job? Am I afraid of not publishing my book? Am I afraid of publishing my book?

The truth is that I am afraid of it all, and I am so tired of being afraid.

I had dinner plans with someone tonight, and he cancelled, but he waited until the last minute to do it, which peeved me.

A good friend stepped in and went to dinner with me, but as we were leaving the restaurant, a car drove by and almost veered into the car in front of us.

We nearly watched a head-on collision, then the car that was driving wildly veered around us, sped up, and gunned up a one-way street.

It was all very deliberate.

The car in front of us pulled over, and I pulled in behind it because I assumed that it knew what to do. Then, I realized that I wasn’t even in a parking spot, so I pulled out very slowly, and I looked at the driver, and he and I just stared at each other.

The driver of that dangerous car didn’t seem to be drunk. He had too much control (veering away from the car he was going to ram just in time). I told my friend that, to me, the situation looked like domestic violence.

I said, There was probably a woman in the passenger seat. He probably wanted to scare her. Being in control of a car is the ultimate control.

I said, I know this because Caleb did this. Maybe once. Or maybe twice. I don’t know. Maybe more times than that.

My friend laughed nervously, which was the proper response because my tone, as usual, was matter of fact, though I was describing something horrific.

I no longer feel fear in the same way that others do.

Last summer, at this time, I was in Europe.

The night before I left for Europe, I stayed with the only man I’ve actually cared about since Caleb. That man picked me up from my bus. We had dinner. We laughed. We watched some HBO. Then, I sat closely to him.

Then, we stayed up all night.

The next day, I went to the airport. I had a book advance shortly behind me, a residency ahead of me, and I had been fucked the night before.

I got a massage and a glass of wine at the airport.

I thought that I could escape my past, but I cannot escape my past.

So many people reach out to me about my writing. I am having some difficulty responding. I have real friends I have not written back to because I am so overwhelmed. People I have never met send me letters and presents. I am so blessed. Who else can claim to be so loved?

I do not deserve this love, yet I am afraid of losing it. Because, no matter what I receive in the mail, I am here.

On my couch alone in the early morning after someone has cancelled dinner plans with me.

When Caleb and I were together, he drove me everywhere–to the grocery store, to work and back.

He drove me to the point that I grew fearful of driving.

When I left him, I had to learn how to drive again, but then, I drove across the country, almost 4,000 miles, by myself, and I don’t think that’s something that a lot of women can say.

Suddenly, my fears felt conquerable.

And soon, one day, I was driving in the Badlands of South Dakota by myself.

The sky was large, and the grasses were full. The highway cut through the landscape like a ruler, and I was following its direction.

I have never regretted my decision.

I may be afraid, but I am not scared.

What is the difference between growth and change? Change is something that happens to us, and growth is something that we create ourselves.

Reed woke me up this morning. He is a morning person, and I have trained him to wake me up. We then packed him for summer camp, and I let him mostly pack himself, which meant that he was overpacked, and I knew that he was overpacked, but I wasn’t sure in what ways that he was overpacked, so I didn’t intervene.

The truth is that I do not know how to be a mother.

I didn’t have a baby and then just know how to be a mom, you know?

I read all of the books. I did everything right–according to the books–and I intuited the rest, but my parenting intuition was crummy when I started out.

And then, Caleb stepped in. Caleb knew everything, it seemed. And soon, he was the better parent, the better partner, the better person.

And, soon, I was just crying in the bed and wondering what happened to the strong woman who married Caleb.

After Reed was fully packed, I took him to brunch at a local restaurant. We ran into a woman, and she asked me about my book. She said, “I finally read your essay. That’s what the book is like, right?”

I explained to her that the essay and the book are different, that the book necessarily references a lot of what happened in the essay, but so much more happens. I explained all of this without ever saying directly what the essay and book are about. Still, Reed stood there next to me. He has an iPad. He could find that essay if he wanted.

That is why I had already told Reed, “My book is about your father’s abuse of me.”

At the time, Reed said, “I already knew that.”

Reed and I had to move out of our house in the holler because my landlord and his wife were separating. They came over to say goodbye, but hadn’t yet told their children about the separation.

I said to Reed, “[The boy] doesn’t know, so don’t say anything.”

Reed said, “He might know.”

“Why?” I asked.

Reed said, “Because kids know. We can tell.”

His face was serious.

I knew what he was referencing.

When that family came over to say goodbye, the boy wouldn’t look at us. He asked to leave early, even though we had only been there for a moment.

He knew what he was saying goodbye to (and it wasn’t Reed and me).

When we had moved into that house, I thought that we were the broken family moving into the shadow of the perfect family.

I wanted to be in that shadow.

I wanted to believe.

Maybe if we were in the shadow, we could someday be in the light.

My landlord would come and fix the sink, or the outlet, or whatever. Reed would stand by him and talk to him, hand him tools. It felt like Reed had this father figure.

The boys would run between each others’ homes.

In all honesty, I have been unreasonably devastated by the break-up of my landlords.

I wanted what I thought they had.

All of these years of growth, and what has it gotten me?

Or anyone?

How does our growth measure up against circumstance?

How does our growth measure up against change?

I sent Reed off to summer camp this morning. He wanted to do this camp with his best friend, and I had asked Caleb if he would let Reed do it. I said that I would pay (I make a lot less money than Caleb), and Caleb only needed to drive Reed, but Caleb refused, and it turned into an ugly argument. He said that he couldn’t possibly drive for that long, and he alienated his child in the process.

In the end, because I knew that it was so important to Reed, I offered up my own time with Reed. Reed told me that, when he got to his dad’s, his dad said, “I would have driven you,” as though Reed wouldn’t have remembered what his father had previously told him.

Reed is smart.

At one point, he said to me, “I’m pretty sure that my dad’s an alcoholic, but he says that he’s never been drunk. He’ll ask me to bring him six beers in a day, then tell me that he’s only had three.”

We were in the car on the way to school–not the place for deep conversations–but I said, “When your father says stuff like that, you are allowed to believe your eyes and not what he says.”

“I know,” he said. “My dad is kind of a liar.”

How does one explain gaslighting to a child?

I revised the worst written chapter of my book tonight. It had been the most painful chapter to write. I had called it “Playlist For a Broken Heart,” and it included an annotated playlist that Caleb had made for me when I had seriously considered leaving him for the first (maybe second or third time).

I had initially quoted the playlist verbatim, then my agent advised me to just pick one or two songs and show the moments in scene.

She told me not to shy away from the sexual chemistry that I had with Caleb.

Here’s the thing: When I initially transcribed the words of Caleb’s annotated playlist, I sobbed.

But describing those moments in more detail and in-scene made me sob even more.

I described the flimsy shirt I wore the first night that Caleb slept at my house with me.

I described the way I could always turn on Caleb, just by putting on that shirt.

I described the Valentine’s Day when I wore that shirt and stripped for him.

I described the way that my hands dug into his back as he came into me again, and again, and again.

I broke down sobbing at my writing desk.

The revised chapter is titled “I Left You Crying, or We Fit Together, or A Playlist For a Broken Heart.”

I hate him, but in a way, I still love him.

No one yet has excited me like he did, and at this point, I don’t think anyone will.

Caleb’s father used to talk about his ex-wife, about how much she had hurt him, about how awful she had been. He used to say to me how, at his own mother’s funeral, his ex-wife had told him that she would never love anyone like she had loved him. He said this with both glee and disgust.

Even back then, when I was still married to Caleb, I remember thinking, I don’t want to be her.

I remember thinking,  I am already her.

While I was typing the previous paragraphs, Caleb texted me “Thanks. Reed looks so happy” (about a photo of Reed at summer camp that I had sent him).

That was when I broke down sobbing.

I am already her.

My husband–my person–the person who was my person–has a new family, and I am not allowed to grieve that because he abused me, and I am the idiot who allowed that abuse to happen, and who continued to have feelings for him after he abused me, and who still stupidly cares what he is up to after all of this time, and who left him and freed him up to meet someone cuter and younger, and possibly with a better disposition.

I am the person who is still alone, though he is not.

I have changed, but have I grown?

I honestly don’t know.

I forgot to include my photos of the injury in question.

Sincerely,

Kelly Sundberg

•

Ms. Sundberg,

I am Lt. —– with the West Virginia University Police Department. I am an investigator that has been forwarded a copy of an e-mail that our department received, reference concerns you had with the campus police handling of domestic violence, particularly an incident in which you were involved with in November of 2012, reference case # 12-0016621. I have been assigned to formerly investigate this complaint.

I have included in this e-mail a copy of our form for filing a report of complaint against police personnel, which I will need you to complete and send back to me. I will also need to speak with you sometime to verify your identity and clarify details of your complaint. It is my understanding that you are now residing out-of-state, so I will need you to give me a call at your convenience at the number listed below, as I do not have a current contact number for you.

Lt. ———-

•

[Scheduling and logistical stuff redacted]

•

Hello, Lt. ——-,

I have been struggling with pain for about five weeks. Not emotional pain, but physical pain. I ran some intervals a while ago, and I developed some pain that I thought was soreness, but it didn’t go away. A few weeks later, I went to see a doctor–not my doctor–and she diagnosed me with Delayed Onset Muscular Soreness and showed me a bunch of stretches. On Friday, I went and got a massage, and the massage therapist told me that she could feel a bunch of trigger points in my thighs, and I had obviously been working very hard. By Monday, I could barely walk, so I went to see my doctor this time. Her diagnosis was, I don’t know.

My doctor is very kind and empathetic. The world has brought so many kind and empathetic women into my life when I have needed them, and I found myself telling her that I really didn’t want to stop running because I have been using the running to manage all of the trauma that has come up from writing my book.

She asked me, “Do you think that the trauma is what is causing this pain?”

“Is that even possible?” I asked.

“Well, western medicine wouldn’t say so,” she said. “But I wouldn’t rule it out.”

In my book, I have a chapter titled “His Ghost in Her Bones.” I talk about how Caleb has become a ghost in my bones.

And I guess I was right because what is wrong with me is that I have stress fractures in both of my hips.

My problem isn’t with my muscles, but with my bones.

I did everything right to strengthen my muscles, but my bones couldn’t take it.

Bones can’t really be made stronger.

My friend said tonight, “Have you been thinking about the metaphor of birthing this book and your hips being fractured?”

I haven’t, but she made a good point.

This book is too large.

It has broken me.

But this is not a story about my book.

This  is a story about a woman who will walk around on fractured hips for five weeks.

This is a story about a woman who will finish teaching her classes, and throw multiple parties, and pack her house, and move to another house, and unpack most of that house, and send her son off to spend the summer with his father, and spend time with friends, and walk her dog every night, and flirt with multiple people (and even make out with one of them), and cook delicious meals, and work on book revisions, and write blog posts, and all of this will happen while her hips are broken.

This is a story about a woman who does not know how to feel physical pain.

Last night, I walked by a piece of broken glass from a picture frame that a friend had accidentally stepped on. The glass shard sliced through my calf. It was a pretty nasty looking wound, nasty enough that my friend wanted to take me to the ER, but I just slapped a bandaid on it.

Still, later, I broke down crying. I said, “My body is in so much pain already. I don’t think I can take anymore.”

That was the first time I had articulated how much physical pain I am in.

At the beginning of the physical therapy session, I could tell that the physical therapist didn’t take me very seriously. By the end, he took me very seriously.

He told me that I need to rest. He told me not to run at all, that I need to avoid walking, even.

I cried on my way to the car.

I called my mother. She said, “Just give yourself 48 hours on the couch, okay?” By the end of our conversation, she had modified that to 24 hours because it was clear I was never going to give myself 48 hours on the couch.

I told her that I would do as she said.

I hung up the phone and went to the gym.

When I walked in to the gym, a professor at the front desk said, “Did you get your shirt?” (It’s a shirt for having gone to the gym over a 100 times in a year.)

I have gone to the gym 166 times in the past nine months.

Throughout this process, I keep being asked to rank my pain on a scale of 1-10, but I am at a loss as to how to do this.

I asked the nurse, “Is 10 like childbirth? What do these numbers represent?”

I said, “My pain when I run is a 7. No, maybe just a 5. Or maybe only a 3.”

I said, “I don’t know what my pain is.”

She said, “It’s just for our records. Just give me a number.”

I said, “Okay, the number is 6.”

Today, the physical therapist said, “When you run, the pain is a 7 or 8, isn’t it?”

I said, “Yes, it’s a 7 or 8.”

(I had just needed his confirmation to believe it.)

How is a woman who has had to learn how to not feel physical pain supposed to rank her pain on a 1-10 scale?

Is a 1 a push? A shove?

Is a 2 a grab at the arm?

Is a 3 being pressed against a wall?

Is a 4 being shoved into a wall?

Is a 5 being being punched in the arm?

Is a 6 being punched in head?

Is a 7 having hair ripped out?

Is an 8 being punched in the face?

Is a 9 being hit with an object that has been thrown?

Is a 10 that one time that I was on my stomach, and he punched me so hard right in the middle of the spine that, no matter how much I disassociated, I couldn’t not feel it?

I find that the blog posts that get the most traction are the ones that have some kind of empowering ending.

This is not that story.

This is a story about a woman who doesn’t know how to feel or identify pain anymore.

This is a story about a woman who broke her hips because she was running away from her trauma brain.

This is a story about a woman who has been running for too long.

This is a story about a woman who doesn’t know how to stop running.

This is a story about a woman who doesn’t want to run anymore.