I think in my heart, I really, REALLY wanted to get over Don. I wanted to move on with my life, be healed and whole. Unfortunately, I didn't know how to do that.
He still called me. He still drove by my apartment on his motorcycle on his way home from work. He still tried to get me to be with him...on his terms. And sometimes, I did it. Sometimes, I was so lonely, and I gave in.
I don't really know why I didn't think I was important enough to have a good life. I do know that I was losing hope that I ever would.
During all this time, and probably for the duration of our marriage, Don had been looking for Cindy, the girlfriend I caught him with back in 1984. I don't think he ever got over her. I don't know what it was about her, except for the addiction cycle. She, too, according to him, was an alcoholic, so they had something in common. I had no sympathy for the girl, though, because she knew what he was, and she kept going back to him for more. Oh, wait! So was I.
Anyway, he found her somehow, and they hooked up again. In the midst of it all, he was still trying to work his tricks on me. And it was working.
It was November, and, as crazy as this sounds now, I had made up my mind that life would never get better for me, that everyone would be better off without me. I had everything all planned out. My doctor had given me anti-depressants, which worked like depressants instead, and I was going to take them all the weekend of Thanksgiving. Now, I obviously didn't give into these demons in my head, which is great, but I thought about it for a long time.
Instead of doing anything foolish, I spent a lot of the weekend with my family. My sister, her friend, and I went to the mall on the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend, and I was so surprised when I saw him there... with her. I waited until they got past us, and I basically broke down. He didn't even see me, and he walked right by me!
I tried to not think about him and get over my feelings for him.
Each day brought new surprises. One day, he hated me; the next day, he said he made a mistake letting me go. Back and forth constantly with him really left me emotionally spent. I was also going out and drinking a lot. That wasn't helping me recover from my heartache. Even though the physical violence stopped, the emotional abuse was ongoing.
One night, he called and asked if I wanted to come over after he got off work and just stay over with him. I really debated about it because I knew that he was still seeing Cindy. But I did it anyway. I got to his apartment earlier than he did, and I sat in the parking area and waited. Then, Cindy showed up. So, I got out of my truck and went over and talked to her. I told her that he told me to meet him there, and she was drunk. And then he pulled up on his motorcycle. I went back to my truck, and they had a few words, and she left. We went inside, and he was obviously distraught over what took place.
She kept calling. Finally, at 3:00am, he talked to her, and I left. I went straight over to her house, rang her doorbell, and she let me in. We sat down like normal people (and this was NOT a normal situation) and had a two-hour conversation. She told me that he loved her, they were going to get married, blah, blah, blah. And I felt compassion for her because she really believed it. She was just as messed up as I was about him. Neither of us understood that love is not violence.
I decided when we were talking that I was really finished with all of this nonsense. And I really believed myself. After our conversation, I went back to his apartment, and I told him to leave me alone. And I meant it. I told him that I would not talk to him if he called, so to leave me alone. And I left.
Of course, he was calling and leaving messages that night. Ridiculous. I didn't answer for a while, but finally, I did. I reminded him of our conversation earlier that morning, but he didn't seem to remember it... or he wanted to keep me hanging.
In the meantime, my friend (she's the one who had the baby I liked to rock) called me. The father of the baby, her now-husband, had assaulted the baby, and she was in critical care. She was brain dead, and would I please come up there after work. Of course, I did. It was the saddest thing I had ever experienced in my life up to that point. My friend was so upset, too. I took her older girls home with me that day, and they spent the night with me. I took them to my mom's the next morning, and their dad picked them up for school. The baby died.
The funeral was on December 19th... the anniversary of my marriage to Don. It was so sad and something that didn't HAVE to happen.
Our divorce was final the next day. He didn't show up or anything. My friend went with me to court, and just like that, it was done. I was no longer tied to him...at least legally.
Sometime after this, Don received a letter in the mail stating that one of us needed to get a loan to take care of the situation with the Beretta. He was so mad! He couldn't get credit if his life depended on it, so he was hacked off. I stopped over there to look at the letter, and he was so angry that he threw beer in my face when I got there, and I was so upset that he did that, I was crying hysterically. When I got to my parents' house, my nose started bleeding. They thought that he hit me, but I told them he didn't. He just doused me in beer.
Well, I contacted the bank, got a loan, and I had two vehicles with two vehicle payments. I was going to try to sell my truck and get a part-time job to pay both payments. And I was moving out of my little apartment in February and in with one of my "lay-off" friends. I never knew that she was also being abused by her husband whom I thought was just so nice. They had been divorced that year, too. 1989 was not a good year at all for a lot of us. So, she and I decided we could get a really nice place for less than we were both paying, and we wouldn't have to be lonely, either.
I spent the last night of 1989 with my friends who set me up with a guy I had met years before. I had fully expected to have a good time with him because he was such a nice guy. It didn't really matter, though. All I could think about was Don and everything he had done to me. This was not the time for me to get involved with anyone else. It would end up being a disaster. So, 1989 went out quietly with a lot of tears, but I had high expectations for my next year.
I didn't know it, but out there 1,500 miles away from me was a man who had his own set of problems, and our worlds would eventually collide about 16 months later... and it would change everything for both of us.
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