My mind takes me back to the very beginning of my "relationship" with Guy Curtis. Now that I am safe, and know that my only reaction to his return would be to call the police, I keep going through the what if cycle. What if I hadn't allowed him to stay when he came to my room the first time? What if I hadn't been so willing to discuss my past with him? It was the equivalent of loading the "gun" that he used to infiltrate my defenses.
I was single when he came into my life. I had been for about five years. I was content with my life, for the most part. I had decided that I would wait for God to bring my "perfect" partner. I had waited. In the beginning we talked, a lot. He spun his web of sorrow, and hard luck and I bought into it. The abandonment by his parents, the loss of his mother while he had been in prison. The story of his crime, of a childhood spent dancing for money. He even told me that he had legally taken a stage name, Michael Whispers.
I thought I loved him, now I know that I only pitied him, and hoped to offer him a better life. I let him stay in my home to work on his dream to become a professional musician. I have had a weakness for creative people for a very long time. I hoped to facilitate the aspirations of a variety of individuals that needed a place to make music, write poetry and stories, and draw or paint. It started that way and rapidly became a nightmare.
I wanted to believe that people are inherently good. Do unto others, appreciate what was done for or given to them. In actuality I have discovered that this is not the case. Appreciation turned into expectation, then disappointment, and finally the basis of determination that I was a fake person. There was no regard for my feelings and no respect for my efforts.
Those who lived at my house did not support themselves. No matter how often I would try to explain that my expenses increased with each person that wandered in and forgot to leave. It became the goal of these people to take my home for their own purposes. They worked very hard to achieve this goal, to the point of having me arrested and put at the mercy of the judicial system based upon false accusations.
I finally became angry instead of overwhelmed and made all of them leave, all but Guy Curtis. He stayed, I thought he cared for me. Ultimately I came to realize that he was the last rat on a sinking ship. When he realized that I would not leave my house as a result of other's behavior he resorted to physical violence. He came and went for about three days after he beat me. I now believe that it was his hope that the beating would send me running to my Mother's home in Minnesota. I did not. I did enter into a fog of fear, denial and sadness.
When he finally realized that I would not leave he stole my car and left for Florida. He has made no effort to contact me since that day. In some respects this is a good thing. It makes me wonder if I would have let him come home and attempt to work through whatever brought the demon in him to the surface. It took me about a month to come out of my haze and become angry. Angry fueled my determination to never again allow anyone to take over my life.
I will always have physical reminders of that time and specifically that incident. My vision is permanently impaired, I will never be able to drive again. I have scars from serious lacerations, a result of my arm going through a window. I look at his picture now, and all it does is confuse me.
Still I wonder, why do these thoughts come? I cannot travel back in time and warn myself. I have developed the tools to stand my ground. I can and do say no without a sense of guilt. I do not give explanations for my choices. It is my life, and my rules. Never again will I allow someone else's expectations override my own sense of worth. There is no compromise. It is my life, finally.
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