Team Bella

So Julie's comment on the Team Jacob post got me thinking (after I finished laughing.)

We women need to choose ourselves a little more often.

Julie and I often talk about how most fathers don't have the guilt that most mothers have when it comes to time for themselves. They (the fathers) feel that they deserve whatever time they take for themselves, whether it's to exercise an hour each day or yeah, even fall asleep on the couch at 6pm and sleep through until the next morning, knowing that SOMEONE will get the kids fed, cleaned up and into bed at a decent time.

About ten years ago, before I met Tom, I dated a real creep. I met him just days after I went through something that hurt me so deeply that I didn't think I'd ever recover.

This guy was a predator. He knew a weak person when he saw her. He said all the right things, did everything I needed him to do there at the beginning and I was sucked in. I rebounded and he caught me.

I only saw him for about six months before I came to my senses but in that time, he was able to get about $2,000 out of me. He was slick and good at what he did. By the end, I was seeing him in secret, not telling anyone who cared about me that we were even still seeing each other because everyone, EVERYONE was telling me that he was bad news. But I didn't want to believe I'd been so weak, so stupid.

But see, I'm not usually weak. I'm not usually easily taken in. Becauase he met me at my lowest point, I was an easy target.

But only a few months in, I was healing. Not because of him, though. In spite of him. He thought women were weak in general. He thought he knew how to talk to them, how to drive a wedge between me and my support system.

I took him home to meet my mom and a few days after that meeting, he casually asked, "So what were you running from when you left Chicago?"

I was confused. I hadn't been running from anything. I'd moved home.

I explained this to him.

He acted bewildered. "That's not how your mom tells the story."

He was trying to make me think that my mom told him a different version of why I'd moved away from Chicago.

I knew my mom wouldn't do that.

Again, he wasn't used to strong family bonds. He was a user, someone who thought everyone had a price and a weakness. He knew my bonds with my family were strong and he was trying to break them.

It didn't work.

Later, near the end of our relationship, as I was getting stronger and he was getting more desperate to keep me weak and alone, he said one afternoon, "There's a rumor going around."

I just asked, "A rumor?"

He leaned in, as if he were about to impart some great secret, "People are saying I met you in a strip club in Fort Wayne."

At first I wondered why people would think I'd frequent a strip club. Then it hit me. I laughed. "People think I could be a stripper? Cool!"

He was stunned at this reaction. He thought for sure he was going to undermine my confidence with this little 'rumor.' (For the record, no one ever thought I'd been a stripper. Also for the record, I have never actually been a stripper. :-) )

Things went downhill fast at that point. He realized his control had never been all that strong to begin with and it was slipping fast.

I realized how much he was using me and how much I no longer wanted to be used.

Even after I ended things, he tried to hold on. He tried to maintain a thread of communication, saying at times that he had some of the money he owed me. He'd give me $100 here or there, just to keep a foot in the door of my life.

But then I realized that he was just poison. The money wasn't worth it. One afternoon, after a month of blissful silence, he called me while I was at work.

I answered the phone and when I heard his voice saying, "Tommie? It's Terry, do you have a minute?"

I simply, gently put the phone back on the cradle. He never called again.

That moment of power, of taking back my dignity, my strenth, my confidence is so strongly imbedded in my memory. I was done. Done being used, done being played, done being manipulated.

I chose me.