Don't You Know I'm Not Your Ghost Anymore....

No, I can't take one more step towards you
'Cause all that's waiting is regret
Don't you know I'm not your ghost anymore
You lost the love I loved the most
I learned to live half alive
And now you want me one more time
And who do you think you are?
Runnin' 'round leaving scars
Collecting your jar of hearts
And tearing love apart
You're gonna catch a cold
From the ice inside your soul
So don't come back for me
Who do you think you are?

__________________________________________________________________________

It was six and a half years ago, I was freshly seventeen, and miserable. I was giving myself to boys who never promised me anything, but who I was sure would put the light back into my eyes. They didn't. Then one day, he spoke to me for the first time in a long time...We never spent a day apart again.

We danced around with butterflies fluttering in our insides for weeks. Despite all the drama, we felt untouchable. We rescued each other. We NEEDED each other. Him and I. On December twenty first, before the sun even came up and while the windows were still covered in frost, he kissed me. For the first time in a long time I felt my soul light up.

We rushed home, in my parents basement while everyone was away, we made love that morning. It was all we both ever imagined. We kept saying over and over again how we waited for this for so long. He whispered in my ear that he had thought about this very moment every day since he first saw me six years before. It was wonderful, it was magical. We cried, we loved.

We spent the next eighteen months with tunnel vision. We ate, slept and breathed each other. No one else mattered, nothing else mattered. Nights ended late with us tangled up in each other, mornings started early in the same way. We hated college, home was a mess. Neither of us felt like we had one anymore. But we had each other. On December sixth less then a year after our first night together he signed on the dotted line. Two weeks later I was wearing his ring.

The proposal should have been a red flag in that I never got proposed to. I knew he had the ring, I had picked the thing out for goodness sakes. I begged, I wanted to wear it I wanted everyone to see my big sparkly ring, and know I was his. He ended up throwing the ring box at my head...I went to our family christmas party the next day with a bruise on my temple and a ring on my finger.

After five months of wedding planning we were married on April 3, 2009. We spent three nights in an alternate universe, in a beautiful hotel suite, alone. On April 6th he would leave for nine months. Neither of us knew how much that nine months would change our life. At the end I joined him, he begged for a child. He knew he was losing me. A child would make me stay.

We made a baby. We fought like crazy, I knew then I wanted out. He'd scream and cut me down, break things, and scold me. He scared me. I knew it was only a matter of time before I felt his anger in a physical way. Then one day I woke up to take a test for the 100th time thinking it would be negative and thanking God. I couldn't wait to go home, I did not want to have this man's baby. This is not the man I fell in love with, he was no longer safe.

Two.Pink.Lines. I went to the bed where he was sleeping and told him that I was pregnant. He rolled over gave me a kiss, we made love, then went back to sleep. I cried myself to sleep that morning, they weren't happy tears. I always knew a day would come when I would be all alone with that baby. I knew I didn't want him to be the father of my sweet child. I could protect myself, and now it was my job to protect MY baby.

We would go home for a month before we moved away for good. Once we were there, after three days in the car, that was the first time I felt it. A slap across the face, because he was lost on a country road and I didn't know where we were, god forbid. I reacted with out thinking, I punched him across the face. That would be the last time I would hit him in that way, but I would never stop fighting back. In the years to come my self defense would come in the form of scratches and pinches, he would go to work with scrapes on his face and tell all of his friends that the dog scratched him. God forbid anyone know the truth...that The King had me held against the wall by my throat because the laundry wasn't folded, and I scratched him to get him off of me while my sweet baby sat playing in the warm freshly laundered clothes pile only a room away.

For the past four years of our marriage it has been a living hell. Life would be picture perfect, then one day he would snap. It became predictable. I learned how to handle it. I learned how to calm him down, and I learned how to smile like nothing happened, I learned how to protect us. Every time it happened I threatened to go home. I wanted to with everything inside me, but I would never leave, I was far too loyal for that...

At the end things were finally getting better, or so I thought. We were communicating, we were enjoying each other, the fights were less. Laying in bed one day after a long trip away I saw the first message, I asked about it and was told it was some guy, I don't remember the name he told me...but it was bullshit. And I believed it. A week later he came home from work on a Friday early with a case of beer. He said he was leaving, and didn't bother asking if I wanted to come. He turned off his phone. Around two am I went out looking for him in the rain. I didn't find him. At three am he came through the door. He had driven home drunk, he passed out in his own vomit on the bathroom floor. Who the HELL was this person?

The next night we were laying in bed watching youtube movies together when the text came acres the screen. "have a good night :*" That was it, I made him talk, I was calm, I made him talk, I wanted to see her, I wanted to speak to her, I wanted to know everything, how it happened, what had happened, why it happened. He had no answers, he was sorry. But it was too late. It was what I'd been waiting for all along. I'd take the fall, I'd take the risk, I'd start over it would be worth it...nothing was worth this life.

My sweet little girl was growing, faster then I ever thought possible and the months were just ticking away. I was wounded in a way I knew I would never recover from, not as long as I stayed there. I would leave. It was too late.

Six months ago today Adaline and I left Arkansas. It was by far the easiest, and hardest decision I ever made. I knew I did not want that awful man to be the one to raise my child. But I didn't want to do it alone either. Now six months later I know I will never have to. As Adaline would say when I ask her if she's my baby, "No I my family's baby" We have more love surrounding us today then that man could have ever given to us. Not because he was incapable, but because he was unwilling.

Six months later I am stronger then I ever thought I could be. I see the light as the cold air is surrounding us and the sun comes through the clouds and I am playing soccer with my little princess and her great grandmother, my Nana. Someone she would have never known had we stayed, not the way she knows her now. For that I am thankful.

I want with everything inside me for this to all be over with, I want The King out of our lives, I want to move forward and continue building a foundation of a life for my sweet innocent girl. The life I shared with her father was on a foundation built of sand, I won't make that mistake again. She will never know the pain and fear and sadness I felt every day. There will never come a day where she feels unloved, because I spent so many days with those feelings while I was married to her father. She will never feel unsure of her self or insecure. and neither will I. I will teach her what strength is, and what love is. I will teach her to laugh and I will hold her when she cries, and I will feel stronger every single day knowing I did it, I'm doing it...With out him.

It's been six and a half years since we first made love, exactly six months since the last time I felt him inside me. It's been three years eleven months and ten days since we said I do. He no longer has any power in our lives, he cannot hurt me and he cannot hurt my sweet sweet baby. He will never be anything more then he is rite now...and our life will only get better. I cannot wait for the next six months to be over with so I can finally file for divorce, if they are anything like the last six months then there is lots of growth to be had, and love to share. I cannot wait.

We will do it with out him.