Let Me Be Myself: The Day I Finally Left

I joined the Air Force to run. Not toward something. Away from it. Away from home. Away from the shame of what happened to me. Away from a family that wanted to pretend nothing had happened. If we don't talk about it, did it really happen? Away from the kid I used to be before everything fell apart.

I thought if I could be perfect, it would cleanse my past. If I could be the best at everything, maybe I could erase the ten-year-old who got abused by a man everyone respected. The kid whose dad left. The one who lashed out and hurt people because he was hurting.

So I became obsessed with perfection. The best airman. The best photographer. The best at everything I touched. But I pretended it did not matter. Pretended I was just naturally good at things. Pretended I was not disappointed when I failed, which was not often, and was not really failure in most people's minds. But it was always failure in mine. I don't know how Tom Brady can live with himself. The man lost three Super Bowls.

The Marriage I Thought Would Save Me

I got obsessed with the idea of getting married. As if that would somehow solve everything. As if a wife and a house and a normal life would make me normal too. I rushed into a relationship lined with emotional abuse. And I was too much of a coward to confront it head on. To deal with it. To let the chips fall. Instead, I became passive-aggressive. As if that would help. As if quietly resenting someone would make things better.

I became a skilled liar. Saying what I thought needed to be said rather than the truth. Keeping the relationship from exploding by never telling her how I really felt. Never standing up for myself. Never saying no.

The lies piled up. I could not remember what I had last said. Could not keep track of which version of me I was pretending to be on any given day.

The Child Who Saved Me

We had a child. Oh, that will help, I thought. And he did help. Just not in the way I expected.

My son became the best thing that ever happened in my life. I spent countless hours with him. Sunday school teacher. Volunteering for Royal Rangers. Being his basketball coach the only year he ever played a sport. Shuttling him back and forth to theatre class. Volunteering to build sets. Becoming the head set builder for the children's theater. High school theater booster club president.

I cherished the time at the theater because I got to be around a bunch of energetic, happy, messed up kids searching for meaning in life. And, I have to admit it meant I did not have to be home. Did not have to lie my way toward peace. Did not have to pretend everything was fine. Road trips for work became an escape. I would land at the airport at 5 PM and sleep in my car until 8 before heading home. Because I knew she would be tipsy by then. And tipsy was easier to manage than sober and angry.

I spent money behind her back because I was not allowed to shop for myself. I once wanted

to buy a wooden trencher in England. A replica of what they used to eat on back in Shakespeare's day. With a depressed spot on the corner where salt was placed. She said no.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the entire England trip, among others, including a trip to Spain for a cousin's wedding, were paid for by the dollars I earned at my job. The sole reason for going to Spain was that we could afford it and no one else in her family could. She went to school for six years and got her master's degree. I never asked her to work. Just wanted her to be happy.

What an idiot I was, right. Let's not mention that the whole trip to England was because she was in a graduate Shakespeare class and decided to impress the professor by flying us to London and schlepping our way to Stratford-upon-Avon to see Macbeth. It was a great time. As long as I behaved perfectly. Good travel for our eleven-year-old son, though.

Why I Stayed

Why would I stay in such a messed up and painful relationship for so long? Because I did not want my son to go through a divorce like I did at ten. So I told myself: Get him through high school and leave.

Then it became: Get him through his freshman year of college.

Then sophomore year.

Always pushing the inevitable down the road.

Why?

Fear of failure.

My entire life I was good at nearly everything. But I was not good at being married. And I could not admit that. Because admitting it meant I was just like my father. A man who walked away. A man who could not make it work. You cannot make someone else happy. Especially when you are miserable yourself. But I kept trying. I kept pretending. I kept lying. And I kept looking at myself in the mirror with disgust and wondering why I looked pasty and miserable.

The Things I Will Never Forget

Dreading her trips to the beautician. Because I knew when she came home after dropping a hundred and fifty dollars with the stylist, I would be in the bathroom trying to fix her hair by cutting it. Then getting screamed at for not doing it right.

Daily 10 PM trips to the drugstore. To get enemas for her. And the cheapest wine they had.

Well, at least she'd pass out eventually. Why did I stay?

The Day I Left

One day at work, I got a call at 2 PM. She was screaming at me for something. I do not even remember what. I said, I'll be right home. I drove the thirty minutes sweating and dreading the entire way. I walked in the door.

"Why are you home early?"

I said, I am done. I am leaving. I packed all my clothes. Tossed them in my car. Loaded up my bicycles. Left. Never went back.

On the drive to the hotel, a song by 3 Doors Down came on. "Let Me Be Myself." I had never heard it before. I bawled. Fear gripped me. Failure. Just like my father. The thought tormented me.

A week later, I had an apartment. No furniture. I spent five hundred dollars filling a shopping cart at Target with anything and everything. Towels. Soap. Toiletries. Cleaning supplies. Ironing board. Iron. On and on. I slept in a sleeping bag for weeks.

And I felt free. I felt like the ten-year-old boy finally had the courage to say stop it.

What I Learned About Chaos

Life is chaos.

You run from one thing and straight into another. Often times, as we all know by now, a very similar circumstance. You think perfection will save you. You think marriage will fix you. You think staying will protect your kid from the pain you went through.

And then one day you realize: You are not protecting anyone. You are just lying. To her. To yourself. To your son who sees more than you think he does.

I stayed because I was terrified of being my father. The man who left. But by staying, I became someone worse. A man who was there but not really there. A man who lied to keep the peace. A man who taught his son that this is what marriage looks like.

I do not regret leaving. I regret not leaving sooner. I regret the years I spent pretending. The years I wasted trying to be perfect instead of just being honest. I regret teaching my son that you stay in something painful because you are afraid of what people will think if you leave.

But I do not regret the moment I walked out that door. I do not regret the sleeping bag on the floor of an empty apartment. Some of the best sleep I ever had. I do not regret the fear or the failure or the knowledge that I had become exactly what I swore I would never be.

Because that moment taught me something the Air Force never did. Something perfection never could. Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is admit you failed.

And leave anyway.

Where I Am Now

I am not bitter toward her. She was not an evil human being. I am alive after all. Not a Dateline episode at my home. And I was not perfect either. She had her demons, like most of us. Turns out therapy works for some of us. Thank you L.D. It was a relationship full of life-learning lessons. It gave me an amazing son. And it gave me the understanding of what I did not want the canvas to be like. She might be living an amazing life now, I hope so.

Turns out I am pretty good at being a lone wolf. The solitude. Taking the trail that I choose without fear of repercussion. Freedom. No one I feel like I have to lie to. No guilt about what I want. Finding the right wolf to run with someday would be nice though. I know healthy relationships are possible. Has to be fun to be in one.

For now, I continue to learn about liking myself. The thing that song said. The thing I could not do for all those years.

Turns out, that may be enough.