Week 52 Topic: You Owe Me Big Time
bonus points
(hard, 2 points): incorporate The Butterfly Effect
(easy, 1 point): use a skillet for something besides cooking
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I can tell you, I am currently living a very mundane existence. When I was young, thin and not in pain all the time (Fibromyalgia). I had a very exciting life.
But it also was unstable, substance filled, loaded with abuse and flat out dangerous. As much as I would love to go back to the figure I had, and the excitement of living the "wild life". I cannot turn back the hands of time, nor would I want to. As the life I am living today is too full of the "Important Things" now (Kids, Grandkids, Real Love).
*Disclaimer* I am by no means putting down anyone that enjoys the "Wild Life". I know I did! This was a personal choice for my own well being. The "Important Things" can be different for everyone as well.
Let me tell you all about Mike, the guy I lived with for 3 years in the late 80's. I met him through mutual friends at The Backroom in Austin Texas. He was a drummer, who was also a Music Store owner (Mike's Music) right next to The Broken Spoke. He owned his own home, he had wealth, yet he was also a musician. And anyone that knows me, knows that music is also my weakness.
I had just gotten out of a long relationship, that had devastated me emotionally. I had given my whole heart to a man and lived with him for 7 years, only to end up in a battered women's shelter at the end. I was hurt, angry, and scared of giving my heart to anyone ever again. To this day I am afraid of ever meeting him face to face, not because of the abuse, but because deep down I have never stopped loving him even after all he put me through. It has tainted almost all of my relationships since, most of all, the relationship I had with Mike. Fortunately many years has gone by when I met my current Husband, and I was able to let go enough to be happy and give my heart to someone completely once again.
What I didn't know when I met Mike was that he was an alcoholic. After casually dating for a month, he offered me a job at his music store as his manager. I accepted, as I had had good managerial skills, I would be around musicians all day and I could do what I loved. When business was slow I could play any instrument I wanted, or walk next door to the Broken Spoke and talk with country musicians. I bought a computer and a point of sale program and put all the inventory on line (This sounds weird now, but this was very progressive back in 1989).
After just another month, Mike asked me to move in with him. I took a gamble on my future, and decided, why not? I can save what I had been paying in rent, and we could save gas by going to work together, and I could spend more time with Mike. What I did not count on was that Mike was a closet alcoholic. That meant once I moved in, it would not be a secret anymore from me.
The first big surprise was the fact that I stopped getting a paycheck. When I asked why, I was told "You are living in my house, you don't have to buy anything. I buy the food, your clothing, jewelry and anything you want, so why should I pay you too." He had a point, in the last 3 months, I had not bought ANYTHING, not one drink, one cigarette, one outfit, one piece of jewelry, nothing. Whatever I wanted was mine. He would take me on weekly shopping trips to buy anything I wanted. So accepting that I was not going to get a paycheck anymore was pretty easy. Easy is the first step to hell.
Being as we worked in the Music industry, we had to socialize with musicians. That meant every night was filled with music, going out to see bands, concerts, dancing, drinking and fun. I was young, pretty and trying to bury a broken heart with someone I thought I could use. But as each month passed by, I realized I was the one being used. I found not only was I opening the store more and more often by myself, spending all day alone in the Music store but I was fast becoming chauffeur (I discovered he lost his driver's license for his third DWI just a few days before he met me.), the girl on his arm to show off. He had to show everyone how "wealthy" he was. It would not be unusual for him to drink away several hundred dollars a night. He not only would buy his own drinks, but would buy drinks for anyone he thought he could "impress" and who might come to his store. Hoping that a couple drinks would turn into a butterfly effect and they would buy lots of musical equipment later. It seldom happened....
I had stopped drinking completely the year before, when I realized I only was having to babysit him anyway. The end of the relationship came one night when he beat me up in The Backroom's parking lot, because "some guy was looking at me from across the bar" (I suspect it was my X, as he was there that night and had asked me to give him a BJ in the men's bathroom and I turned him down flat). The bouncer pulled him off of me, and just ten minutes later he did not remember punching me. The ride home that night was also not a night I would like to remember. As I was driving over an overpass, he reached over and grabbed the steering wheel and tried to jerk the wheel so we would go over the overpass. I never knew adrenaline could make me so strong! I went to bed when we got home, figuring that if he slept it off, things would be OK in the morning. I woke up an hour later with him standing over me and urinating on me!
I had been in an abusive relationship before this, and I swore No Man was ever going to abuse me again!
If someone Peeing on you is not abuse of one form or another, I don't know what is! I got up, went downstairs to the kitchen and got a frying pan. He was following me through the house just screaming at me that I was his because he gave me a 3 carat diamond engagement ring, and that he could do whatever he wanted too to me! So I hit him with that frying pan! It did not knock him out, but it did make him MAD.
When he grabbed the baseball bat, I hid. when he could not find me he left. Being as it was 4 in the morning, I went to the guest room and tried to get a couple hours of sleep. I had noticed he took one of the cars in the driveway. When 8 o'clock rolled around and he still was not home, I called the police dept, who let me know he was in jail for his 4th DWI, but they would be releasing him as soon as he sobered up. So I went down to a pawn shop, pawned that big ass diamond ring, I figured he owed it to me, big time!
I then went around the corner, rented a U-Haul, drove it to the house and loaded it up with all my belongings, by myself (I moved an antique tiger eye maple dresser with beveled glass swinging mirror down from the master bedroom upstairs,into the U-haul by myself). I was out of that house by no later than noon that day! I was just throwing things into boxes and moving as fast as I could, because I did not know when he would come home. The last thing I wanted or needed was for him to walk in on me leaving him. Lord only knows what would have happened then!
I then drove to Wisconsin to try and start a new life, one that did not involve Musicians, Music Stores, Booze, Bars, Rock Photographers or Men that wanted to use/abuse me. It was time to grow up, and to me at that time, it also meant giving up everything I had become. Including selling all of my musical instruments, stop singing and become a "Soccer Mom" complete with mini van.
It has only been in the last ten years, that I am finally me! I ride motorcycle (I do not ride "Bitch", I went to a motorcycle safety course), I am going back out to concerts and I am learning to relax. I garden and I sew, I find that enjoyable and relaxing. I have learned it is never to late to take control of your own life.
I understand from friends that Mike's Music closed shortly after I left Texas.
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Please highlight or otherwise point out your bonus points attempts. Don't forget to guess who picked the topic and the bonus picture as well as guessing the bonus secret word or phrase for a chance at more points. Send in your topic, bonus point suggestions and bonus picture for next week after you post your blog!
My guesses;
Who picked topic - Kismet
Bonus Picture - The Falcon
bonus secret word or phrase - The Gambler, Texas hold em, I'll break your kneecaps, full house, royal flush, cards, card games, payout, winning, losing, dead mans hand.
Thanks great bloog
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