"I will continue with the next section of my story about meeting my husband at college...but in a later post.  Tonight I want to find a way to go to sleep by unloading my fears on this blank page.  For I haven't been able to sleep well for two days now.  I am nervous because the storms I live with, the bi-polar storms, are oddly quiet right now.  My husband, Storm Boy, or SB as I've been calling him, is in a strange lull...but I am not fooled.  I should be happy, relieved, but I am not.  I know, that like the barely rippling surface of a Scottish loch nestled between green mountains, peace is deceiving, and lurking in its murkiest depths, down in the cavernous and mossy rocks no human eye can see, is a monster---something prehistoric, something mythic, something that uncoils its dragon-like links, blinks its myopic eyes, and heads slowly and surely for the surface.  This is the demon, the reptilian sorrow, the inevitable, rising leviathan that taunts us all...a humped home-wrecker, a cold-blooded throwback to some primitive time, when man wielded a club and lived by the adage: an eye for an eye."

I found this half written opening to a post, penned many months ago...and I sigh.  If a person could sigh with fear, then that is the kind of sigh I just made.  I've found a way to take a break, a long hiatus from the Loch Ness monster.  I've been staying for a month at a friend's house many hours away...but now I must return home or make a complete break from the creature that robs my sleep, my peace, and my joy.  My children want to go back to what is familiar, to their friends, school system, activities, even their house with its endless cycles of bi-polar/borderline personality darkness. They want what is familiar. They have never known anything else.  My children are almost out of high school. I ask myself, "Can I get through these last few years, get them safely launched, and then seek my own haven?"  Yes, it would be easier on some levels...but on others it would be very, very difficult.  I don't have a family support system and I have been a homemaker much too long. My resume dates back to college, though I have been working on writing projects that might bring in considerable income at some point.  I feel like a failure bound by her fears and a victor about to strike the final blow to her chains and run free.  I don't have the answers as I write this.  Of course, people always say, "You are the mom, the kids have to follow your decisions," but the decisions are more complicated than people realize.

I have a friend with four young children, a bubbly, outgoing, beautiful young woman who was in a very similar marriage for a long time.  She recently separated and is heading towards divorce.  She told me that no one can rush your decision, no one can understand the process it takes and, in an ideal world, no one should judge the way you fight your battles, because it's not their Loch Ness monster....it's your own.  She told me that many women said to her, "If my husband did that to me, I would have left a long time ago."  There were "friends" who implied she was weak, spineless, a doormat, indecisive, etc.  Then there were those people who encouraged her, held out a lifeline, patiently helped her work through each battle, and always knew who she really was--a uniquely strong individual that would land on her feet in the end.

If you look at my friend on the outside, she seems to have it all: glowing good looks, charisma, an optimistic personality, family support, talent, a beautiful home, healthy kids, a new job....but on the inside she is fighting the battle of a lifetime, trying to break free of an abusive and controlling man, create safety for her children, overcome doubts and fears, not give up.  You might see her driving around our wealthy town in her SUV, with her shades on and her blonde hair back in a ponytail, four adorable kids in the back seat...but the truth is she is a hunted woman, has a security box now at the bank with her greatest valuables in it (so her husband can't take them), a plan in place for her children in case he goes after her violently, a network of friends for protection, an important key hidden in the backyard, and the list goes on.   I just saw a picture of her on facebook with a female friend, going to a shooting range.  It looks like two women having fun, a Thelma and Louise type outing...but I know what lies behind the picture...I know why she might be training with that gun, especially as her divorce approaches.

It sounds crazy, but this is the life some of us end up living.  I once thought that only people coming from terrible backgrounds fell into this kind of mess...but my friend and I are the complete opposite.  We both had wealth, opportunities, a certain amount of order and peace in our homes growing up...then again, we both had a parent we struggled with, who exhibited some of the behaviors with deal with in our spouses.  In the end, these situations are not related to pedigree or intellect, but to a kind of blindness that blow after blow, turns to a brilliantly hard clarity one must live by....or die.  An awakening to a truth that Loch Ness monsters are real, sighted by a few individuals, ugly, bizarre creatures that taunt and haunt us, before they sink back to the depths from which they will inevitably rise again.