Manifest Destiny: Part 2

I used to have this bit I would do. I’m not a comedian, but I have my moments and in my best ones, I can captivate a small group with a funny story. I’m like a five-year-old where if I get a laugh, it feels so good I’ll keep repeating myself until I’ve exhausted everyone around me.  

One of my most successful performance pieces centers around my incredulity over not having been roofied yet. I go to bars, I talk to strangers, I leave my drinks unaccompanied, and yet – I always leave the bar disappointingly conscious and unlaid. Am I not hot enough to be date-raped? Why not me too?

If you don’t think it’s funny, it might be in the delivery. I always got laughs –and laughs are my oxygen. It’s how I know I am liked. And if I'm liked enough, maybe I can be loved someday too.

What made people laugh was how outrageous it was. Of course, I didn’t want to be sexually assaulted. I was just kidding around.  

But then I was.  

I wasn’t drugged by a stranger and it wasn’t at a bar. It was someone I trusted. It was premeditated and it was violent. And no. It wasn’t funny at all.  

The fallout was so much different than I would have expected, if I had, which I hadn’t. I didn’t expect close friends to stay neutral about it and I never considered how that would feel. I underestimated the unconscious flinch that would happen when I would see his face, even in a photo, or his name on a text message or see him in person – how all of those things would feel like another equally violent assault. I didn’t account for the fact that he would ignore any boundaries I set to keep myself safe or that he would dismiss them just to show me that he could. That manipulation would play out in a hundred microaggressions that added up to constant torment and trauma in an endless replay loop.  

I didn’t know that protecting him would feel like I swallowed a thousand sharp needles. I didn’t know that I would take the brunt of judgment and blame. I didn’t realize that every small manipulation was leading to this moment and that the rest of my life would be the aftermath. I still don’t know how I will ever trust myself, my decision-making, my judgment or my own heart.  

I didn’t know that after I promised to tell the truth, I would be challenged with keeping a terrible secret. I didn’t know that if it came down to me or him, even I would choose him.  

I didn’t know that I could be strong enough to move forward. I didn’t know I could find the audacity to cut ties and mean it. I didn’t know that trusting people with your secrets gave them an opportunity to step up for you—or to betray you. I didn’t know the latter would hurt more than all of it combined. I didn’t account for the fact that when the dust settled (if it ever truly does), my priorities would come into clear focus. That loyalty—something I’d never put much stock in before, because I didn’t have the confidence to demand it—would be the glowing rock that I would step toward, rock to rock, slippery wet stones in a makeshift bridge across treacherous waters.  

I don’t know much, but I know now that loyalty is the bedrock of every step I will ever take forward. And that it is the only quality worth demanding.

So to those who may have overheard a stupid joke I made, know that now I know and I’m sorry. Maybe by making this joke, I somehow willed this to happen. I put it out in the universe. Maybe because I felt so guilty about ending my marriage, I believed I deserved to be punished.  

I manifested my punisher.  

And now I will manifest a very careful future.