My New Reality

I am (I was?) a fifty-percent-full-free-spirit.  My favorite place was running the greenways in my neighborhood with my iPod playing my favorite music.  It was my way of dancing through life at my own beat.  I married a fifty-percent-empty-planner.  He gave me a secure life where I could remain somewhat guileless and still giggle at his seriousness.  He proudly keeps a dependable routine that I marvel at.  Routine breeds stability and stability gives way to security.  I felt safe in my world with him laying the pavers down for my free-style steps.  Living with him and his routines did teach me a few tricks.  Those tricks have proven mostly effective in managing a home and child.

We have one child, a daughter who embodies the best of both of us one hundred percent and I am fortunate to be able to stay home with her.  She smiles excitedly while putting her toys in distinct orders.  Seeing the perfection in your offspring is something that makes you a parent.  You can't explain that, and many other things, to people who haven't become parents.  And try as I might, I won't be able to fully explain what it's like to be jeopardized in my own home, with my daughter in the other room, unless I'm talking to someone who's experienced the same.

It was another Friday morning and I was again cleaning the bathrooms.  Every Friday is bathroom day.  Thanks to the influence of the aforementioned planner, I am that person who sticks to a weekly cleaning schedule:  Monday--vacuum upstairs & downstairs, Tuesday--iron (yes, I iron), Wednesday--"free" day (dust, clean porch, makeup for prior day), Thursday--vacuum downstairs, Friday--bathrooms.  And so, like I said, it was Friday.  I'll never forget that detail, one of many I'll never forget.

Despite the usualness of the morning, J's choice of play was not.  She had gotten on a roll with viewing new shows on the tablet, navigating her way around Netflix, secretly believing she was a genius to be finding TV programs she'd never known existed.  "I'm going to go clean the potty's J."  "OK" was all she replied before she quickly closed her bedroom door to more fully absorb her time with the gratifying tablet.

Visiting each bathroom, to empty the trash cans, I took the back way into J's to give her more privacy and me a greater chance of completing the days cleaning task faster, without interruptions.  Outside I put the trash in the city appointed bin and returned to the house.  I quickly decided to also take out some recycling in all my movements and therefore mentally told myself I didn't need to lock the door.  For me, allowing my mind to follow the brain takes a lot of effort.  I can't say whether this took more energy of thought at the time, or it's just another detail that has been magnified in my memory of the event but I didn't return with the recycling and knew instantly when I saw him that I had not locked the door behind me.

I was upstairs.  J was downstairs, still in her room, with the door closed, engrossed in Netflix, on the tablet.  My driveway extends from the street to the back of the house where it meets the detached garage.  He was halfway up my driveway when I saw him from the window next to my desk.  I had taken a quick break in between bathrooms to open my email and see what others were doing this ordinary morning on Facebook.  I was standing next to the window and gave me more of a view of the driveway.  He was deliberately walking up it with the steady pace of a measured metronome.  His body was held tight; only his legs seemed to move.  He was dressed appropriately for the weather and his clothes were clean but his hair was dirty blond and matched the khaki shades of his clothes making him loom, indistinct yet large.  He had a backpack. 

We live half a mile away from a university.  There are plenty of houses with migrating students on and around our block.  We have a small herb garden on the side of our driveway off the back deck.  We planted catnip in it last year as a gift to the number of neighborhood cats who we prefer over getting a pet ourselves.  Throughout the past season, a certain grey cat had become especially fond of the herb and we hadn't gotten a chance to get to know him yet as he scampered away every time we tried to introduce ourselves.  Maybe the catnip made him paranoid.

At first my forgiving, half-full, open curiosity asked, Was he a student who recognized his cat sniffing at the catnip?

Then the Mama Lion instinct kicked-in.

I DIDN'T LOCK THE BACK DOOR!

J IS DOWNSTAIRS!

I'M WEARING NOTHING BUT YOGA PANTS AND A SPORTS BRA!

In the space of one second, those thoughts raced past my mind and only then did I move, grab a pullover and run down the stairs.  I was too late.  He was a couple steps in the house.  He had zero expression.  The tempo of his steps had not changed.

I'm originally from New Jersey.  We don't generally hold back.  As soon as he was in my sight which was when I saw him through the window in the wall that separated him in the back room and me in the next room, I busted out, "EXCUSE ME??!!"

His expression did not change from nothing.  His walking did not pause as he continued towards me.  I was still in "running" mode when I hopped over Teddy and we crossed paths in between J's bedroom and her security bear.  I saw her door was closed therefore she was continuing to enjoy the small pleasures of mice ballerinas and soft talking little bears.  She was comfortable sitting crossed legged on her soft bed surrounded by her princess treasures.  I was about to face a threat that had the potential to destroy the world we as parents want our children to remain in as long as possible.

He swung at me.  I ducked and screamed, screamed and ducked, right outside J's bedroom.  While I did not feel the sting of a punch, I will always feel the swipe of his hand and jacket sleeve.  I was crouching.  I didn't have a plan beyond, "EXCUSE ME??!!"  I thought this was the end of something beautiful.  The end of my daughter's exuberant world with a mama who loved to color alongside her, no matter what the picture.  The end of my ability to walk, function as before, enjoy relations with my husband, or watch my daughter grow up and be isolated in the her room by teenage angst, not by mice ballerinas and soft talking little bears.  I hadn't finished teaching her everything I had learned about life and love.  I was crouched and frozen in time.  Suspended with flashes of doomsday scenarios.  I tried myself in front of a jury of me, myself, and I.  They found me guilty of failure, uselessness, stupidity, and naivety.  Forgetting to buckle her into her car seat that one time (or three times) was nothing compared to this screw up.  And then, he was walking away.

With the same pace, the same metrical tempo, he had turned around and walked out the same way he walked in.  "I'm getting the fuck out of here."  are the only words I heard him say.  I hopped back over Teddy and got to my phone just as he passed the bay window facing the driveway.  It was stunning to see he *really* was walking back down the driveway. 

I dialed 911.  He was turning right out of my driveway, heading East.  I clearly said this to the 911 operator.  A saw a woman go past my driveway walking in the same direction, maybe 10 steps behind this person who just attacked me in my own home.  I told this to the operator.  He didn't find that as concerning as I did.  I ran out my front door.  The woman was just about to be beyond my voice.  I yelled to her, not concerned that I was also yelling into the mouth piece that held a direct line to the operator--the one person I was now dependant on to return my safety and security.  He was asking me questions. 

"Are you hurt?"

"No."

"Do you need an ambulance?"

"No. Didn't you hear me?  There's a woman right behind him!"

"Police are in the neighborhood ma'am."

A police car went down the street in the right direction.  "I just saw a police car.  He's going the right way."

A police car went up the street in the wrong direction.  "I just saw another police car.  He's going the wrong way."  The police car quickly turned around.  "He's going the right way now."

"They have a suspect.  Are you OK, ma'am?"

"Yes."

"Do you want me to stay on the line with you?"

The endorphins seemed to stop pumping, and a different emotion came over me.  The shock left me, and I was overwhelmed with fright and terror.  The tears were an avalanche and the shakes came out of nowhere. 

"No, I want to call my husband."

"Excuse me ma'am." 

My words were not as clear as they had been a second before. 

"I want to call my husband."  I want to put my world back together. 

 "OK, I understand.  The police have apprehended a suspect.  One of them will be at your house shortly."

"Thank you."  Click.

He may have responded, I didn't wait to hear.  I dialed my husband's office.  The receptionist answered.  I didn't let her finish her cordial introduction.  Through gasps and sniffs and uncontrolled pitch breaks she heard me say, "V, this is J, I need to speak to..." and immediately transferred me.  He heard my voice and he didn't stop to be thoughtful of the situation.  He critically judged my nondescript babblings and  had 2 questions and 1 statement. 

"Is J alright?"

"Yes."

"Are you hurt?"

"No."

"I'm coming home."

I had to calm down and check on J.  For her, who gives me amazing strength, I made the tears stop in their tracks.  I wiped the evidence of the others off my face.  Slowly and precisely, I opened the door and mechanically stretched a small smile across my face.  There she was, untouched and unspoiled.  The "good" news came first.  I told her Papa was coming home for lunch today and she could keep watching the tablet as long as she liked.  She looked at me slightly sideways and asked why I had screamed.  My stomach tightened.  I told her I thought I saw a really big bug.  Then I very purposely closed the door to her room, where she was still safe and forced myself to exhale. 

Teddy head was turned "looking" at me from the floor where J had left him that morning.  I looked at Teddy.  Had he seen Teddy just as clearly as I am now seeing him?  I had navigated around him at least 3 different times and only now noticed him.  Did J's security bear, all innocent white and fluffy with the loved-in floppy head trigger the guy to turn and leave this home of my family?  Even as J's dependence on him lessens a smidge every day, my adoration of him grows.  I believe in the end I will miss him more than she does.  I will certainly always remember him with this day.

For the following week, the mostly innocent question, "How are you doing?" got me choked up.  Most neighbors and friends who had heard didn't know what to say or do.  The pragmatic mid western neighbor directly asked through email, "Was that you?"  Others looked at me with a mix of caution (if I ask, that makes it more real and the reality is it could happen to me) and brimming curiosity (how do I ask with concern and not sound gossipy?) while others decided it was best not to come to my door unannounced.  Some made excuses to talk to me, hoping to get more bits of the story.  Maybe their intentions were good but my new skepticism told me they were hoping to be the ones who could spread the news of the details gotten straight from the source.   

Family members who for years have wallowed in their self-pity with talk therapy and prescriptions suggested I do the same.  After my panic attack at the sentencing hearing, one said, "It sounds like you may be experiencing PTSD and should consider Xanax or Ativan as well a good therapist."

The truth is I want to feel it.  I want to feel every inch of the terror.  When something good and magical happens, we always remember the loveliness of the experience.  The good and magical moments make us into the evolved people we are.  So too do the terrifying moments.  Pushing them away will not help me understand why I'm more cautious then you.  Or why I'm a little jumpy with sudden movements in others and why that man walking into the pizza joint makes me wide eyed for a split second with his resemblance to 'him'.  Even my husband will never understand how the deadpan look of the dude who walked into the bar demonstrating little absorption of his surroundings keeps me mesmerized until he chooses to leave.  My husband can't secure everything for me as before.

My new reality is a more aware, vigilant and active reality.  I watch every person in my surroundings and absolutely profile them as quickly as possible.  I do not run with headphones.  I look up and around while running; not down at the path.  I'm more comfortable on the public busy streets over the quiet greenways now.  I cannot be lost in my own world anymore.  The free spirited side of me has been quieted because one day, J is going to be holed up in her room with teenage angst and I want to be here to witness it.  I've seen the other half of the glass and it's not as shiny and clean as I once wanted to believe.