Chapter 4:
Spit
Most years of my life I spent in confusion and angst trying to understand why those I loved treated me like garbage.
My mother, my step-mother, my teachers, my siblings, my classmates, my girlfriends.
The longest, most serious relationship I ever had was full of good and bad. A lot of bad.
After over a year of increasingly frequent outbursts of rage, violence, and unprovoked paranoia, I was still there. Taking worse beatings, growing more stressed, disassociating with my own heart ‘til I could barely speak or breathe or walk any further. Trying to maintain sanity, believe in a future of progress and showcase support and trust in somebody who had violated every part of my existence.
At this point we were staying in an Airbnb in Tucson, Arizona, living well. We had shelter, we had food, we had each other. But she was continuing to lose her grasp of reality. And after yet another argument over whether I do or don't care about her and her well-being, she started, once again, punching my face and ripping at my hair.
I pushed her arms away and moved her against the front door and didn't let her raise her arms to hit me again. I looked at her straight in the eyes and said “I can't keep doing this. Stop hitting me.”
She glared back at me and instantly spit directly into my face, mostly into my mouth.
I immediately felt a wave of shock, hurt, disbelief and self-frustration. I had been hit by this woman day after day after day, for months on end, yet this felt more damaging than any physical strike. The repulsive intention one must have to directly spit from inches away into someone’s face was hard for me to comprehend. That it came from this woman, who I had damn near died for and did fully give up myself for - who I had witnessed write and release her first ever album, who I had seen completely quit drinking and doing coke and other drugs, who I admired as she faced her abusive parents and gained strength in her self-empowerment…
But who also increased the frequency of her rageful outbursts, misdirected violence and harmful psychotic episodes. For every step forward there were 500 swings to the face. 1000 rips of the hair. And 1 disgusting spat.
I walked away, I left the room and sat down on the couch, stunned, confused and frustrated at mostly myself. I knew life shouldn't be this way. I knew love shouldn't be this way. We were far away from love at that point. I prayed for things to settle. We put it behind us and watched a movie, one I had never seen before - Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ”. It solidified my opinion that what's referred to as Jesus’s “Passion” is just a gigantic mockery, a mockery that continues to this day.
There was something metaphoric about the fact that I watched these roman soldiers hit, degrade and spit on this honest man over and over again, all while the woman who hit, degraded and spit on me was fast asleep on a pillow in my lap, completely unphased, while I cried and cried harder as the movie went on.
I stayed with her for nearly another year before things blew up enough that she disappeared, stealing everything from me in the process. Many lessons were learnt through the relationship and the aftermath that came from it. The company you choose to be around is of vital importance, a matter of life and death. Stuff will come and go. Laptops, clothes, instruments, phones, vehicles, legal documents can all be replaced but your smile, your peace, your passion should never be given up.
I, truly, hope the best for her and that she's making progress and facing her demons wherever she may be. I am proud of how I've bounced back from the lost, broken man that I became.
As for the rage-filled saliva? I'd be pretty delighted to never be spit on again and I will continue to surround myself with kindness, understanding and growth.
This is just one story, the fourth story, in a series of stories that makes up what you read today. Rooted will never cease to intrigue and will always aim to inspire. I am deeply grateful for the experiences that I have had, the people who have pushed me to share them, and those who discover and receive my expressions today and tomorrow.
See you next week with a new tale from the depths of my past - bleached onto my eyes, deep rooted into my mind, refined and healed through my soul and articulated down to this page for all to hear.