What's that line about the first step? :o)

The first time he ever hit me I was 19 years old. Him and his friend had been drinking Tequila. He had the stereo blaring and it was about 2:30 in the morning. I was getting irritated because it was so late and I was tired. When I turned the stereo down, it completely ticked him off, bringing on a barrage of curse words in my direction. Well, this was when I was still full of fight. Full of piss and vinegar is what my Nanny Pat always used to say to me. I don’t remember the words exactly that was said between us, but I do remember getting smoldering mad and I smarted off back at him…… It was instant….. Some unexplainable sensation exploded in the center of my face. Time seemed to stop for those first moments as my mind tried to figure out and process what just happened. All I could hear was my rapid heartbeat and it sounded like a waterfall was in my ears. I could feel his spit hitting me in the face as he was screaming and cussing me out so loud. I remember for a nanosecond being mesmerized by the veins in his neck because they looked like they would rupture any second. Pain was beginning to shoot behind my eyes and through my sinuses. What is that weird taste in my mouth? I had to run my tongue across my front teeth because my top lip and upper gums were numb and I wasn’t even sure if my teeth were still there. They were. That taste in my mouth was getting stronger. The cloudiness in my mind was finally beginning to clear up and I snapped back into the moment. He was still screaming at me about what a dumbass I looked just standing there bleeding everywhere. BLOOD! That was the taste. I went into the bathroom to look in the mirror. All across the inside of my top lip was busted. There were two gashes I was bleeding from. As I was rinsing my mouth, my emotions were a jumbled wreck. I was mad, confused, lonely, sad, betrayed and most of all scared. We had moved out to the middle of “nowhere”. I had no friends, no family within hundreds of miles. The pain was really beginning to set in now and I just didn’t even know what to do. I remember looking up into the mirror and seeing my top lip already swollen to at least twice it’s normal size, poofing my nose out, and making me look like some kind of distorted cartoon character. It was getting puffy under my eyes too. I didn’t look like me. I slid down the wall behind me and wrapped my arms around my knees. The sobbing started. I didn’t yet know how to cry silently. I would learn how to do that in the following months. He came tearing down the hallway yelling about how I wasn’t going to start the “victim *kitten*”. He said I was pathetic. I should learn to shut my fkn mouth. “Look at you, you really are as dumb as you look” Something deep inside me snapped. I went into a pure black rage. The next probably hour of my life I can only recall in bits and pieces. I lunged at him. I don’t even know what I thought I was going to do. Then I was 5’6’’ and 125 pounds. He was over six feet and about 220. I remember being picked up and slammed to the floor. The bed was on one of those metal frames with no head or footboard. The back of my leg and near my hip area caught the end of that metal frame. This time I had no opportunity to clear my head or determine my wounds. He immediately jerked me back up off the floor. The next memory I have is being held down on the floor in the hallway near the living room. I remember his knee in my back and my face being pushed into the carpeting. The carpet burn on my already swelling face stung like fire. I can still remember the smell of that carpet. I remember screaming for his friend in the living room to help me but he never came. He ever even moved off the couch. In the midst of all the pain I can remember feeling confused that he wouldn’t save me. At one point I managed to get out the back door and got about half way across the back yard but he caught me and got me back in the house by my hair. That is my last memory of that night. To this day I have no idea if he left me alone or knocked me out. The next day, there was no place on my body that didn’t hurt. My arms were sore and bruised from being jerked around. I had a bruise the size of a dinner plate from where I landed on the bed frame. Inside that bruise was an even nastier looking bruise that was the exact imprint of the frame. My lips were so swollen I couldn’t even shut them all the way. I was drooling. My left eye was swollen shut. I had a blood blister the size of a quarter in my right cheek. I had a few more nasty looking bruises on my ribcage and collarbone area. My scalp was very tender from part of my hair being pulled out. I hurt like I had never hurt in my life. It was a white hot pain and I was broken. I would never be the same again.

That was 18 years ago. That person is gone from my life. Has been for nearly 9 years. I am realizing that I have sugar coated all the ugliness in my life and ate it. 100 pounds of it. I guess that is how I survived those years. Maybe it helped me keep my sanity, I don’t know. I do know that isn’t my life anymore and I have to quit carrying it around (literally). I’m going to purge it and throw it all away. I will never be that 19 year old girl again but, I can begin the adventure of figuring out who the 37 year old me is. I can tell you that the 38 year old me will NOT weigh over 200 pounds.