SEXKITTEN

Just imagine

I am the best mother to my boys, not when I am unhappy and falling apart, but when I can stand firm and capable of making sensible, rational, and well thought-out decisions for us. That is when I am the best sister, daughter, friend and lover.

The greatest and most valuable gift that we can give to the people in our lives is the best of who we are. That’s why I am an advocate of self-love, self-fulfilling and self-reliance.

I’ve been accused of being self-fish and cold-hearted for having the audacity to think and say that I am important. Well, I am.

I know what it’s like to be on my knees in the dark. I have cried myself to sleep, and awakened to a new day smiling. I survived CX putting a knife to my throat and threatening to kill me. And nine years of his threats, violence and psychological imprisonment. Still, I get up every day and walk out into the world. It is self-love that heals me. I am important.

I received several emails recommending that I present more a more unified message when discussing relationship issues. It was insinuated that I put little to no emphasis on parnership and seem to place no value on men. My article on Identity was mentioned several times in relation to this perceived idea.

I love and admire and find men beautiful beyond description. As a mother of two boys, I feel that I have a duty to raise men with whom women can be proud to call husband, father and brother.

I have dated some of the most amazing men. The relationships did not work, that does not mean that they were bad. In some of them, I was the problem. But let us not pretend that bad things doesn't happen and learn from our experiences. It is madness not to.

I wasn’t always a poster child for women’s power…I used to believe that my role as a woman was to support my husband in all that he aspires to be even at the expense of myself. I may make suggestions, and offer input, but the big and important decisions were made by him. I would want what he wants. Go where he said we would go, and live the life that he said we would live. I would learn to cook and he would get the biggest and best piece of the chicken.

Growing up, it was the role every woman I knew played. Why would my life be different? But it is different. We live in progressive times and I am a progressive woman. I will love support and encourage yes, but I am not irrelevant. I am important.

What happens if you place your life into the hands of someone who places little to no value on it? Women are abused, raped, killed and abandoned my men to raise children on their own every day.

At the end of my journey all I had was me and a little boy who needed me.
If I didn’t leave, what would’ve become of us?

I learned that not everyone can or should be trusted with my life.
My needs are not secondary. There is no reason why I cannot be the captain of the ship.
I have my own path in life and will be happy to share it with you should our courses align.
Sometimes I should keep the biggest and best part of the chicken for myself.

It is awfully romantic to declare ourselves ONE with a man, but that is an illusion no different than the idea of the tooth fairy. We are, and will always be individuals with separate thoughts and needs and aspirations and sometimes life takes us in different direction. What happens then?

Does a girlfriend give up her dreams to follow a man who is chasing his? I don't know. I would, if it is a decision with which I can live without regret no matter what happens.

Living a self-fulfilling life means a happier you to share with your partner. Imagine two self-fulfilling people working on the same team. Just imagine...

We should take care not to compromise so much of who we are that we become a shell existing only in someone else’s shadow. We should not allow ourselves to be used, misused and reduced to make a relationship work. It can't. It is already broken. In situations such as these, it is guaranteed that the self you’ve abandoned will be needed for your rescue.

I think of D sometimes. He is married now and blissfully happy. I know that if he had stayed for me, he would have lived to regret it. I did not ask him to stay. I couldn't. I had no right. The odds of making it was not in our favor.

And so I wonder… in situations like these, is the question also the answer?

Once a man, twice a child

I caught a glimpse of life today, the beginning and the end, in the face of an old woman.

Nellie is 102 years old and marked with lines that zig-zags across her face like a timeless puzzle.

She is almost bald…
The few remaining strands scatter about her head, white as snow.
She has no teeth and speaks in incomprehensible tongue.
She cannot stand or walk and reaches for her
nurse with a shaky hand.

Her mind no longer comprehends the world into which she has grown. She looks about
her, cataract eyes flickers sideways and upward like an infant discovering the world in which she is born.

She is graced now and then with fragmented faces of friends and lovers and family trapped in the fading recess of her memory. She trembles with the effort to hold on, but no use, she is lost within time and space as life prepares her for the journey back from whence she came.

“She is alone,” Anna said. “Everyone she knew is long dead,”

Once a man, twice a child, I thought staring at her from the doorway as Anna spoon feeds her apple sauce. She set her eyes upon me and pauses as if to place me in memory, apple sauce drips down her chin. I stare back, caught in a moment that takes me back in time and thrust me forward all at once.

I caught a glimpse of life today…
I saw in all my stages, what was, is, and will be, should I live long enough for time to take back all that it has given me.

Anna wipes her chin and coos at her as one would a child. Nellie gives up placing me in her fading memories, smiles at Anna, and goes back to eating apple sauce, snapping her toothless gums.

It is said that one cannot capture time. Is time not captured in the newborn, the aging, and the aged among us?

I caught a glimpse of life today…
And recognized what I was being shown; a life over a century old. Experiences, insights, mistakes and lessons learned, locked away and inaccessible in a degenerative mind. We go back the way we came.

I am more thankful for this outlet than I have ever been. What better way to record a life, to capture in motion moments, that if not documented, will disappear with time?

There may come a time when I will be unrecognizable to myself.

The simplest things

I hope that everyone had an enjoyable Christmas, that family and friends was a priority. Mine was quiet and reflective. Not to sound like scrooge, but the older I get, the less into Christmas I have become. I find the season stressful. I am glad that it’s almost over. Had it not been for the boys, Caesar more so than Thorr, I would have disconnected from what I have come to view as commercialized madness a long time ago.

My feeling about the season is partly cultural. I was born and raised on an Island where Santa Claus did not come. There were no toys beneath a Christmas tree come Christmas morning. But the season was festive. There was music and dancing and children playing in the street. Wild flowers decorated the landscape in the most magnificent colors. Visiting friends and family was pleasurable.

For the past few years, I’ve been feeling as if I am playing a game that I don’t want to play, but can’t quite get out. Caesar still believes in Santa Claus. And there is no escaping the commercials and the expectations that is associated with celebrating Christmas. I have friends who are devastated because they cannot afford to buy their children the things that they want which amounts to hundreds of
dollars of stuff. Love is not enough.

As much as I love the pleasure that Caesar gets from ripping through gifts that he believes comes from Santa, a part of me cries out in shame.

There is so much suffering in the world…so many children dying of hunger at this very moment. The excess, of which we are a part, paralyzes me.

I speak to Caesar and Thorr a lot about kindness and the importance of sharing with
others. I want them to understand the value of a dollar, and not take things for granted. I want them to respect life and have compassion for those who are less fortunate. I know that long after they have outgrown the stuff, the values will remain. The simpliest things in life, the stuff that doesn't cost anything, is the most valuable. I want them never to forget that.

I want to take this time to thank my readers not just for sharing my life all these years, but for the privilege of making me a part of yours. I have met some of the most amazing people. I consider many of you friends. I am grateful and thankful for you. As we approach the new year, I lift my glass to you...

Cheers…to us,
The life we’ve lived
The places we’ve been
The lessons we’ve learned
And the people we’ve become.
May we stay true to who we are…
May we live our dreams
May we know our strength in our darkest hours
May we never lose our capacity to love.

Identity

The name given to me at birth was based on a mistake that went back two generations.
My father was given for his last name my grandfather’s middle name. And so it came to pass that my sisters and I would also inherit my grandfather’s middle name as our last name.

When I got married, I took my husband’s name...

By the time we divorced, there was very little that I liked or respected about him. Yet I was stuck with his name. For sixteen years, whenever I signed my name, or hear it call out loud, I cringe. I was as disconnected from it as the shattered marriage by which it came.

I tried once to explain it to my friend Allie letting on that I was thinking of officially changing my name. She gave me a look where one of her eye brow lifts high and the other drops so low she looks insane. I giggled as I almost always do when she does it.

“It’s a damn name,” she said. “What do you mean it doesn’t feel like it belongs to you?”

“It’s not mine,” I said. I doesn’t "fit" me,”

She stared at me.

“Kit, it’s a name,”

I changed the subject.

I’ve known Allie for more than twenty years, long enough to know that she would not understand. How could she when I could not quite put into words a knowing that a name is not just a name. It is identity. It is a connection to self that when taken away, is catastrophic. We are all born into a name, history and a legacy that are an integral part of who we are. I spent years saying I am to a name I didn't want, one with the essence of a failed and tragic marriage. There was no pride in it.

Whose idea was it that a woman should give away her name in marriage? To give away her SELF? I will not be doing that again.

In one of the stories my father used to tell me, a woman says to a slave who was renamed by his master, “Slave, what name were you given at birth?” The slave thought long and hard...so long that the woman had to repeat the question. After a while, the slave looked at her with sadness, "I can’t remember,” he said. “I’ve been a slave since I was a boy,”

I have never forgotten the story of the slave who could not remember his name.

Earlier this year, I changed my name to the one that is my birthright. It was not a simple task. I had to change my drivers license, passport, credit cards, contact social security.... But it was worth it. Now when I hear my name, when I say it, when I sign it, there is pride and recognition. When I say “I am” it goes beyond personal, its ancestral. Whatever the legacy, it is mine.

Lust

His lust hit me like spiked fever. Warmth rushes throughout my body leaving me momentarily without reason. I meet the stranger’s gaze from across the room and hold it. He’s been watching me for the past hour.

The attraction is mutual. My gaze keeps going back to him as if compel against my will. My heart beats a little faster and pressure grows strong and pulsate between my legs…it’s been a while since I drank desire from a lovers kiss or lay naked and breathless in the crook of a man’s arms.

I am not without suitors. I am confident in my sexuality. But even though the moment holds the promise of an intoxicating love affair, it will not come to fruition. There will not be a first kiss. If good, one is never enough. Nor will there be a first touch; some touches ignite flames that spreads like cancer and cannot be put out.

We are often told to follow our hearts and take a chance on love whenever, wherever or however it presents itself. True. But one must also be aware that oftentimes, it is not love that comes knocking, but lust.

He wants my body. He knows nothing of my mind and character nor I him. He makes me wet and throb that’s all I know. Lust is like a blindfold that when taken off you may not like where you find yourself or who you have become.

Lust can and does grow into love. It happens when you can see someone from the inside out and still desire them despite all that you've come to know.

I have loved recklessly not realizing that in matters of the heart, there are times when the potential for damage is too great to risk. And one should not act outside the lines of reason. My pulse will slow. The throbbing will stop.
But some scars last a lifetime.

Beyond the thrill of a kiss and touch, the emptiness inside me runs deep. Trust takes time. And what may seem like blissful surrender may be the gift of a seductress. It is not my heart that I fear…mine is locked safely away behind a block of ice slowly thawing. I am still healing from my losses. I am flying on one wing, the other is broken and flapping at my side. Growing in strength, but flapping nonetheless.

How can I give the best of me when I am not at my best? There exist emotional pain that will cause more harm than good if not healed. No one can heal me. I must heal myself. When all the loss and pain is absorbed into the making of me with love, acceptance and understanding, I will be ready again.

Giving in to lust would be a mistake for HIS sake. My kisses will intoxicate. My smile will melt his heart. My body will make him an addict. I can stop his heartbeats with my fingertips. But the moments of pleasure will be forgotten, replace with pain when his heart lie in pieces at my feet.

"When a man or woman leaves you, they are doing you a favor whether they mean to or not," my mother used to say. I believe it.

I feel him behind me, and turns with a smile…

All lovers were once strangers. All love stories begins with physical attraction. The ones I will always love. The ones I never loved. The ones I may have loved but now wish I'd never met, all started with a smile, introduction, exchange of numbers and the first step toward an unknown future.

We are presented with choices all the time…the outcome of those choices may depend on where we are in life when we make them. Are they made with conscious awareness? Openness? Are we free and willing to go wherever they take us?
If not, the risk may be too great.

I stare at him thinking…

Will you understand come morning while your body still hungers for me, to find me gone?
Will you understand when you want to hear the words “I love you” and I am silent?
Will you understand when you ask for forever and I tell you that there is no such thing?
Will you understand that I am as elusive as time?

I am not afraid of love. I welcome it. I don’t fear pain. Love will hurt me. But for now, I leave out there, what might have been. Good or bad, I am not ready for this lustful land.

I thank him for compliment that he bestows upon me and reject him with an apologetic smile.

I have grown tender of a man's heart.

Out of chaos comes order

I have had moments of absolute terror and loss. It's been a life marked by scratches and scrapes and bumps and bruises inflicted by time lived. The mistakes are plenty. And the lessons learned are timeless. Through it all, I can still say that mine is a beautiful, self-filling, uncompromised life.

I have loved to the depth of me, my family, friends and the men with whom I have shared my life.

I have been asked how it is that I can still be hopeful with all that I have been through. I know this: There is beauty and magic in this world. I have touched, tasted and lain naked in blissful surrender. Do we not sometimes cry from laughter? Does a rainstorm not pass and make way for sunlight? Has there ever been a time when dusk did not turn to dawn? The ying and yang of life are indisputable.

And then, there are fundamental guidelines by which I live that keeps me balance and grounded.

I refuse to live in the shadows of someone else’s world.
I do not buy into fairytales.
I do not allow myself to be abused and misused by anyone or thing.
I have not and will not bend to the destructive dictums of society.
I would rather be an outcast than be accepted on a lie.

I remind myself no matter what is going on to stop and smell the roses. I value the simple things in life.

Standing up for what I believe in has more often than not left me standing outside the fence. I don't mind standing outside the fence.

One of six daughters, it was necessary to assert and define myself at a young age. I was never part of the herd even then. I observed the world with interest and curiosity and quiet amusement, but never wanted to be part of the circus. I took instead the roads less travelled, the ones with undiscovered bends, some steep, some dark, some winding, but marked with discoveries along the way. I got in trouble a lot, but it was worth it. I learned that fear is like a double edge sword, it warns of danger, but can also hinder one from being the best that one can be.

I was often misunderstood …

That little girl still lives at the core of me, protected by all that I have become. I am still standing outside of the fence observing... I can clearly see those who have sold their souls and are being led to slaughter. She is a constant reminder that I am built in stages and phases, chiseled in invisible layers and fused together with time. There is sadness in me now that was not there before.

I view this time even with my broken heart and nine years of swimming in shark infested water as approaching shore. I am chewed up, but alive. There is a sense of freedom and liberation to my life into which I have to grow. CX did not break my will. He brought out the warrior in me. He forced me to fight or die. I picked up the sword and discovered that I was masterful in wielding it.

To the reader who emailed me this question: Do you feel damaged by dating a man like CX?

Yes and no. I am forever changed but not all bad. I have gained in strength, courage, and awareness. I have learned to see the invisible. Choose my battles. Know when to run and when to fight. I learned that life is not fair. I learned that I am stronger and more powerful than I knew.

This experience with CX was mine to have. There is a little boy with my blood coursing through his veins and he is brilliant and amazing and he was meant to be. One cannot fight and win against what IS. But we can learn from it.

Every experience is an opportunity to learn about oneself. I hope that I have been a good student.

I don’t know what is around the next bend, but it will not be a life of defeat. I will not surrender nor will I be defined by the moments that bring me to my knees. My legacy will be or rising from the ashes.

There is much living and laughing to do. I have and will continue to lay naked and pulsating in a lover's arms even with CX lurking in the shadows. I will take a chance at trust. Not every man will want to do me harm. And I will continue to give and accept love when it is offered to me.

“Out of chaos comes order”
—Neitche—

I am moving towards order. I demand it.

The road to nowhere

I was sitting on a bench staring at the ocean when I was joined by a young man. A rain cloud passed overhead and showered us for a minute or two, the sun was still shining. All around people scurried for shelter. The man and I did not move or said a word. We sat there as if existing in our own time and space separate from everyone else.

I was thinking of all that I’ve lost in the last two years. I felt as if life has taken from me all that I love.

Thorr is still trying to be a man before his time. I held on as long as I could, trying desperately to change his course in life. I failed. He thrashed me about like a bull-fighter with a death wish. In the end, I was forced to let go or get trampled under the force of a teenager who was chasing something that I could not see. I am left with nothing but hope that the path he's chosen will not take him to places from which he will not be able to find his way back home.

As for Caesar, CX and I are embroiled in another custody battle. It is the second in Caesar’s nine years of life. Both in response to me filing for child support. Had I known what I now know about CX, would I have taken him to court? I don't know but I am glad I did. I have always known that something was wrong with him. This time I went in search for answers. What I found has led to the most difficult decision of my life…one that devastated me beyond anything that I have ever experienced, and again, I found myself being forced to let go or die holding on. (The full story will come at a later time)

I will choose truth over ignorance every time. Ignorance is not bliss. It's dangerous.

The rain stopped, and still the man and I stared at the ocean. After a while, he looked at me and smiled. His face speckled with raindrops.

“Evidently you and I are supposed to meet,” he said.

“I suppose so,” I said smiling.

“Let me guess, you are sitting here pondering the meaning of life,”

“Something like that,” I said.

And so he told me his story…at twenty-eight years old, he was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer. He had just turned twenty-nine, but would not make it to thirty. The diagnosis came shortly after he got married, and on the day he found out that he would be a father.

“You are sitting here with a dying man,” he said. “Two months tops. I will be here no more,”

I stared at him not with pity. Why do we pity the dying? Is death not part of life? And not with fear, but a deep connection to another human being. We are all part of the great mystery. And it was all there in his eyes, the questions he no longer asked. Hope and prayers silenced first by helplessness and then acceptance. He has let go and given in. He's been forced to accept death, and so he understands life.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Jerry,”

“I'm Kitten,” I said. “It’s nice to meet you. Did you live a good life, Jerry?”

He chuckled. "I laughed a lot. I loved a woman I was meant to love, and gave life to a child that needed to be born. I did what I was put here to do. Do you believe in destiny, Kitten?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Don’t worry about things you cannot control. Take that from a dying a man,”

“What has been your greatest life’s lesson?” I asked.

“We are born alone and we die alone,” he said simply. “That is not a sad statement. It is a factual one. Do what makes you happy. Don’t worry about what others may think of you. Be who you are,”

His wife and child showed up few minutes later. He introduced me to them and joked about us sharing a rainstorm together while the sun was still shining. He picked up his son and they headed for the beach where the waves rolled in and crashed to shore.

"Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to die before you die." --Eckhart Tolle wrote.

I watched them for a long time. The dying man living his last few weeks. The wife who must go on without the man she planned to grow old. The child who have yet to experience loss, and will be too young to remember the man who gave him life.

Perspective.

What comes next, no one knows. We may all be on a road to nowhere.

Know Thyself

Over a glass of wine, after three days of defending my life and my name in court, with classic music blaring throughout his house, Eric threw a blanket over my shoulder. “Kitten. You are a survivor. You live your life in survival mode,”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Even in a crowded room, you stand alone,” he said. “You never get close to anyone. You are here with me yet you're millions of miles away,”

I set the glass on the table. It was the way he said it, the tone of his voice, the look in his eyes that threatened to break me. I have spoken to him of CX…

Survival mode…

I have seen CX manipulate and spun a web of lies over truth so masterful it blows my mind.
I have seen insanity in the eyes of a man who sells himself as sane.
I have witnessed evil disguised as care.
I have seen him destroy a child's heart and call it love.
I have seen him in all his shades of gray and darkness. I KNOW the truth. And it is this truth that has forced me into exile.

I don’t say that lightly... I stand alone not just to protect myself from his lies and accusations but to protect others who get too close to me. Thorr and Caesar are greatest at risk.

I have been infected and affected by CX’s insanity. His abuse on my life has taken a tremendous toll. I have kept myself intact by sheer will. I think back to who I was when I met him and I understand now how it happened. I was perfect prey for a predator. I did not know myself or what I wanted from life. I trusted the world in which I live. I was still innocent and searching.

Know thyself. That is what has saved me these last eight years. That is what saves me now.

I have been accused of being “all about myself”. Let me say this, SELF comes first. We are no good to anyone if we are lost and broken. I cannot love my boys if I do not love myself. I cannot guide them, if I am searching for myself.

I have been accused of being disconnected. I am misunderstood... I am careful. I am protective of my children, my name, reputation and my life.

It was important to understand the kind of person with whom I was dealing and what dangers CX posed to me and the boys. What I found terrified me but may have also saved my life. I was constantly putting my life in danger by seeking what I thought could be a peaceful resolution for all of us. I succeeded only in providing CX with ammunition with which to use against me.

1. Threats. I live in constant fear for my life. Not only did he try to kill me years ago, he thrives on threatening my confidence, self-worth, sanity and growth…using manipulative techniques that he feels will degrade and shame me into silence. Yet here I am singing like a canary not because I am fearless, but because I understand that silence will not protect me. How many silent ME’s are out there?

2. Walking on egg-shells. I think about everything I say and do. I have fought hard to trust again, and I have moments when I let down my guard, but never for long. I will watch and observe from a distance, and if I have the slightest sense that something is amiss, I am gone. I have developed killer gut instinct. (This is not all bad) But there are people with whom I have left standing in my dust, who could’ve added value to my life. I am infected.

3. Isolation. I purposely avoid my friends in order to protect them from him. There are people close to me whose name I have never mentioned in his presence. I warn every man with whom I get involve about him. He has attacked every serious relationship that I have been in since meeting him. He has succeeded in restricting my life in ways that are deep and personal.

4. Silence. I used to be afraid to talk about him because the stories are so bizarre that for someone who has never dealt with someone like him, the stories are beyond comprehension and sounds too fantastic to be true. When I told the story of him undergoing penis enlargement surgery because I made a comment about the mammoth size of a pornstar’s cock, people found it hard to believe. One lawyer told me not to tell anyone because one may wonder what I was doing watching porn. I didn’t listen to him.

5. Control. Caesar and Thorr are my heart and therefore HIS weapon of choice. Any man/woman who has ever tried to leave a sociopath or a person not diagnosed, but who exhibits sociopathic traits will tell you that the bloodiest of battles will take place in the courts. Mine is especially dangerous because CX is a former police officer. He is a marine. He's a lawyer with a Ph.d. He has also run for political office. He knows how to sell a credible persona. He is masterful.

So am I.

I woke up at 3:30 am one morning and knew what must be done. The answers to most of my life’s questions are stored in my childhood memories. By age seven, I was set in stone. My father's voice came through strong and clear. "There is no situation that you cannot use to your advantage, Kitten. Turn his strength into weakness. Turn your weakness into strength,"

Expose him using that which he uses to terrorize. The court system. Funny, a court of LAW that should protect victims gives someone like him the tools and the mean to wreak havoc. The lenses through which I viewed the situation was all wrong.

Will this madness ever end is a question that I am often asked by those who know us. The answer is yes. Every beginning has an end. Every end has a beginning.

How it will end is the big question. As Tyson said in my previous post, that decision may be out of my hands.

I know one thing: I must be willing to die so that I may live.

Ying and yang

Do not enter the path of the wicked and do not proceed in the way of evil men...Avoid it, and pass on. For they cannot sleep unless they do evil; And they are robbed of sleep unless they make someone stumble. For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence.”
Proverbs 5:14-17

There are moments when I ask myself, how I could have fallen for such a man? I am trying to forgive myself my poor judgment. I am sure that I am not the only woman who fell for CX’s charm only to find out soon after that he was paper thin and without substance.

He and I were not all bad. We had our moments when the wind was crisp with change and the trees though dying, explode in the most vibrant array of colors. He and I used to lay naked for hours in the crisp Fall air talking about our lives, from where we came and where we were headed. His childhoood stories were strange and dark, but I thought little of them. How could our childhood have so much impact on who we've become? I now know that who we are can be traced back to the beginning.

He spoke of a father who disappeared when he was very young, so young that memories were few and the few were nightmares. He said that his father was a gambler and a womanizer who left his mother and started a life with another woman without ever looking back. He spoke of a day in which he saw his father, he was on his bike and he rode over to him. “Dad, he called out. Dad,” The new woman came out of the house. “Who is this boy?” she asked. “I don’t know,” his father replied. “I’ve never seen him before,”

Tears welled up in me as I absorbed the pain of that little boy's heart. I wanted to wrap myself around him and never let go. I wanted my arms to be his shelter from the storm. That he would never, ever, ever be hurt like that again. The picture of a young him denied by his father haunted me. I write it now and I cry for his innocence. Yet, he laughed when he saw how broken up I was about it. “It’s all right,” he said.

How could it be all right? The memories that stay with us are the best and worst of who we are. They do not leave and they do not grow dim with time. Others are jarred to life when stimulated by something familiar, but not the ones that shape us.

And of his mother, he said that she was abusive. That she worked hard, but struggled everyday to make ends meet. He expressed volcanic hatred and rage for her. “She called me “The Devil” he said one day, and again he laughed.

My admiration for him was evident in those days. I wanted the world for him. I wanted to save the little boy who in many ways I realized had never become a man. So yes, we had our moments of absolute bliss when everything stood still… in the beginning.

Were his stories true? I don’t know. I’ve met his mother and she seems wonderful. I used to think that his hatred for me was a projection of his feelings for her. But I think it's more than that, something far more sinister, a genetic gift perhaps given to him by a man who had so blatantly denied him. IF it happened at all.

I was telling my friend Tyson about CX today. Tyson is a recluse. His home is built deep in a secluded aread. He has never been married. And doesn’t have any children or family of which I know. He said that the world is too unkind. He does not want to be a part of it. Tyson is seventy-two years old and looks at me with gray eyes that sees right through me. At least once a year, I stop in for a visit. He is always reading or painting. Tyson is like my father without the warmth.

“You are Ying and Yang,” he said. He is your opposite like hot and cold. Black and white. Bruce Willis and Samuel Jackson in Unbreakable,"

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“You’re a healer by nature and he is a destroyer. He was drawn to you because he is missing something that you have and you were drawn to him because on a subconscious level you could feel that he is empty. You wanted to heal him and he wanted to destroy you. That was the attraction from the beginning.

The result of this type of union is what's playing out in your life right now. One of two things usually happens... One, he devours and destroys you, or you figures out his plan and escape before it's too late. But he can't help himself, and will continue his assault on your life using whatever means and or methods that he can find no matter the cost. This usually leads to self destruction,"

I stared at him. Speechless, trying to focus the blaring lights that kept going off inside my head. What a fantastic idea?

"That's ridiculous," I said.

"Is it? He asked and turned his back to make a few strokes on the soaring eagle that he was painting.

"His objective was to devour you until there is nothing left. Tyson continued. "But you left before he got done with you. He is trying to finish what he started. You are food to him, to be consumed and discarded when you no longer possess what makes you special,”

“But why?” I asked choking back tears.

“That’s who he is, just as you are who you are. Do you think that you and I are sitting here by accident?” he asked.

"I don't know," I said. "But if that's true, what now?"

“Whatever you’re doing is what you should be doing. No one knows how it’s going to end. But whatever the result, it will be as it should be,” he said. “Caesar is your heart which makes him your weakness. He knows that,”

He must have noticed the look of terror on my face because he said the first emotional thing he’s ever said to me in all the years I’ve known him… He threw his arms around me, "You are the closest I have to a family. You are the only one who comes just to sit and talk with an old man. You still have what makes you special,”

We sat in silence for a while, me looking out into the distance thinking of what is to come. What is Caesar's fate in all this?

I looked up to find him watching me.

"It may be out of your control," he said.

Profile of a sociopath

The Profile of the Sociopath list was taken from this website. The traits are based on the psychopathy checklists of H. Cleckley and R. Hare.

I wanted to post it here because of my experience with CX, a man who fits most of these traits. I am not a doctor and cannot diagnose him as a sociopath/psychopath. But when I was introduced to the above website few months ago, the pieces of the puzzle fell into place, and it all made sense. Not only did I understand more clearly the danger that I was in, I also knew that trying to have any kind of relationship with him will lead to my physical and mental destruction.

I am in danger...

My friends and family have been telling me for years to get the hell away from him. But it does not matter where I go, I am bound to him through Caesar and where ever I go, he will find me. I AM HIS OBSESSION. He knows that I know "what" he is.

I have been documenting my struggles with him for almost seven years. My next few entries will chronicle my life with this "thing". What he has done to me and how he has affected me. Where we are now, and where we are headed. I realized recently that the only way to save myself is to fight for my life. There is a trail of harrassment and bizarre court filings, mountains upon mountains of lies against me ALL leading back to him.

He has unwittingly over the span of eight years been painting his madness in court filings. He is too blinded by hate and evil to see the picture that he's been painting of himself. In order to keep me down he has no choice but to get in the gutter with me.

I have tried for peace in all manner and ways possible for me, for him, and especially for Caesar. But there can never be peace with him. I have come to believe from recent actions that he will never cease his assault on me no matter how much I give. He wants me broken, but unfortunately for him, I am an unwilling victim wired with the heart of a warrior.I will not suffer in silence. I will not stay down.

He and I will soon meet on the battlefield again. This is not about winning for me. It is not a fight that can be won because of Caesar. I don't think he knows that and if he does, he doesn't care. This is about breaking free of the chains in which he has held me prisoner for the last eight years with threats of violence, intimidation, harrassment, control and abuse... There are times when one must stand and fight for one's life, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness. This is one of those.

To better understand what I am talking about, the below list summarizes some of the behavior of sociopaths, most of these traits CX to a T. I hope that it will help you recognize in your own lives if or when you come across someone like this.

Glibness and Superficial Charm

Manipulative and Conning
They never recognize the rights of others and see their self-serving behaviors as permissible. They appear to be charming, yet are covertly hostile and domineering, seeing their victim as merely an instrument to be used. They may dominate and humiliate their victims.

Grandiose Sense of Self
Feels entitled to certain things as "their right."

Pathological Lying
Has no problem lying coolly and easily and it is almost impossible for them to be truthful on a consistent basis. Can create, and get caught up in, a complex belief about their own powers and abilities. Extremely convincing and even able to pass lie detector tests

Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt
A deep seated rage, which is split off and repressed, is at their core. Does not see others around them as people, but only as targets and opportunities. Instead of friends, they have victims and accomplices who end up as victims. The end always justifies the means and they let nothing stand in their way.

Shallow Emotions
When they show what seems to be warmth, joy, love and compassion it is more feigned than experienced and serves an ulterior motive. Outraged by insignificant matters, yet remaining unmoved and cold by what would upset a normal person. Since they are not genuine, neither are their promises.

Incapable of Love

Need for Stimulation
Living on the edge. Verbal outbursts and physical punishments are normal. Promiscuity and gambling are common.

Callousness/Lack of Empathy
Unable to empathize with the pain of their victims, having only contempt for others' feelings of distress and readily taking advantage of them.

Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature
Rage and abuse, alternating with small expressions of love and approval produce an addictive cycle for abuser and abused, as well as creating hopelessness in the victim. Believe they are all-powerful, all-knowing, entitled to every wish, no sense of personal boundaries, no concern for their impact on others.

Early Behavior Problems/Juvenile Delinquency
Usually has a history of behavioral and academic difficulties, yet "gets by" by conning others. Problems in making and keeping friends; aberrant behaviors such as cruelty to people or animals, stealing, etc.

Irresponsibility/Unreliability
Not concerned about wrecking others' lives and dreams. Oblivious or indifferent to the devastation they cause. Does not accept blame themselves, but blames others, even for acts they obviously committed.

Promiscuous Sexual Behavior/Infidelity
Promiscuity, child sexual abuse, rape and sexual acting out of all sorts.

Lack of Realistic Life Plan/Parasitic Lifestyle
Tends to move around a lot or makes all encompassing promises for the future, poor work ethic but exploits others effectively.

Criminal or Entrepreneurial Versatility
Changes their image as needed to avoid prosecution. Changes life story readily.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Other Related Qualities:

Contemptuous of those who seek to understand them
Does not perceive that anything is wrong with them
Authoritarian
Secretive
Paranoid
Only rarely in difficulty with the law, but seeks out situations where their tyrannical behavior will be tolerated, condoned, or admired
Conventional appearance
Goal of enslavement of their victim(s)
Exercises despotic control over every aspect of the victim's life
Has an emotional need to justify their crimes and therefore needs their victim's affirmation (respect, gratitude and love)
Ultimate goal is the creation of a willing victim
Incapable of real human attachment to another
Unable to feel remorse or guilt
Extreme narcissism and grandiose
May state readily that their goal is to rule the world

The beginning

I dreamt of him last night in vivid details that when I awakened come morning, my world was bursting with promise.

He knew long before I did, that he wanted a lifetime with me. I knew that he was my shelter from the storm. The place I run for safety. The trust I knew would never fail me. He was my friend above all else, who loved me passionately through raging storms.

And there was a time when I sent him away to be with another woman…

I hadn't seen him in a while and called to have lunch.

"Why did you show up this time?" Kenny asked.

"To see if you wanted to jump off a cliff with me and see what happens," I said.

He stared at me. “And if we die?” he asked.

“Then we die,” I said simply.

He chuckled.

A week later he called me up. “Let's jump off a cliff,"

"What about Sarah?" I asked. I found out that he'd been dating her for almost two years. Had I known about her, I would not have asked him to jump off a cliff with me. It would be a costly transaction, one that would sooner rather than later have me standing in her shoes. Karma does not wait to get back at me.

"She's not the one, Kit,"

"But you would still be with her if I didn't show up,"

"But you DID show up," he said.

"I don't want you like this," I said.

He refused to go back and for three months, Kenny and I became a 'real' couple. We were happy, but something was missing…pieces of me was still lost out there. And he was too riddled with guilt over Sarah to give himself fully to me. While I was looking out the window waiting for the rest of me to come home, he was sighing in my arms.

We got caught in the rain one day and made a dash to the closest coffee shop for shelter. And as fate would have it, Sarah was there, standing in a corner, soaked, with a cup of coffee in hand. We stared at her and she at us, all three trapped in the same web struggling to break free. And there was something in Kenny’s eyes, something that caused my invisible shield to lock protectively around me. It was a look that says, I am not through loving you yet.

Sarah ran out of the coffee shop and into the pouring rain. Kenny made to go after her, but stopped.

“Go,” I said.

He looked at me with his soul on the surface. If he left, he knew not when or if he would see me again. And there was that look again, only this time it was meant for me. I am not through loving you yet.

“We ARE good together,” He said. “You and I, we are ONE,”

I stared at him without answering.

“Is it love I feel for her or guilt, Kitten?”

“Go find out," I said. "I do not want a man who sighs in my arms,”

After a stilled moment in which I stood like a stone, seeming detached and unfeeling, tucked safely inside my shell, he tore himself away from me and went after Sarah.

I watched him leave, part of me breaking through layers upon layers of pain. It was the only time I feared losing him. I am not through loving you yet. I thought.

I hailed a taxi and went home. My knees though they kept me upright threatened to buckle. I understood that this moment did not belong to me.

He came back to me less than a week. “It was guilt,” he said.
I’m not through loving you yet.

But what really kept us apart were the missing pieces of me that I could not find. We remained friends and lovers over the years but I was as elusive as a ghost appearing out of thin air when he least expected me. Whenever he needed a heart to beat with his, there I would be. We were connected in ways that I cannot explain. “Kitten, I have loved you all of my lifetimes and I am many centuries old,” he once told me.

I was a different woman then… I belonged to the universe. I still do. That is the essence of who I am. We have to know where and with whom we belong in this world. I belonged out there.

I dreamt of him last night…

I awakened with the taste of him on my lips, and overflowing with memories. It was not the end that I remembered, but the beginning...that undeniable, indescribable spark that desire ignites.

None of us love for the suffering that comes when love falls apart. No. Every love story begins with hope. Moments that take our breath way. The first kiss, touch…the moment we peel away all of our layers and stand exposed and shameless, we are more alive than we have ever been. Our heart is a field of butterflies and we cannot stop smiling. We are electrified.

If I focus on where love has taken me in life, with Kenny as well as others, I would never be strong or brave or courageous enough to give my heart again. I would choose instead to live in a season-less world with trees that never change colors. I would eat but not taste, touch but not feel. I would die without ever living.

That is not my purpose here.

I am a wild reckless soul and it is that recklessness that will propel me back into love's embrace. I may cry more than I laugh but would risk it all for that one moment when I am truly alive. I am empowered and humbled by my understanding that love will save me and wound me.

Acceptance

As a teenage girl, I remember liking a boy that did not like me back no matter how badly I wanted him to. “He is not meant to love you,” my mother said. “You will have to accept that,” I did not understand accepting something that I did not want.

I am starting to understand...Acceptance.
Looking back, I wonder, what have I learned most from life? It is all here, the stories of love and loss and love again and again…

I was sitting on the floor in the white room listening to music as I often do, and there I was alone with questions that will never be answered. Longing that will not be filled. Hurt that can only be healed by acceptance.

I did not cry tonight. I have my moments of absolute torture, of stillness, and void and the only thing that saves me is surrender. I realized sitting there, that life is always teaching us to accept the things that we cannot change. We have no choice in the matter. Few things in my life turned out the way I planned.

I did not plan on getting divorced when I got married.
I did not plan on having children. I have two. (And I love them to death).
I did not plan on Thorr (T) growing up to be a rebellious teenager and feeling helpless to control his course in life.
I did not plan on having a psychotic (CX) ex-boyfriend who would teach me that trust was dangerous.
I did not plan the life I have. Most of it happened despite my best intentions.

I am chiseled and sculpted from experiences that I did not plan. I am beginning to grasp the unthinkable… I can control what time to get out of bed, what to have for breakfast, and what to wear as I prepare for my day. But once outside of my controlled space, I am thrust into a universe with infinite variables at play and I can find myself in situations, with people, and caught up in events that had absolutely nothing to do with how I planned my day.

Life has taught me acceptance and flow. If I resist, I will break.
Life has taught me that oftentimes, what we want and what we get are life-times apart.
Life has taught me to love and let go. Should I insist on holding on despite life’s plan, I shall be left clutching air. It will be taken no matter what I do or say. No matter how much I beg and plead and negotiate. That which is not mine cannot stay with me.

Loving Kenny was not in my control. I did not want to love him, but I did anyway. Losing him was definitely not in my life’s plan. I wanted forever with him, but what is forever? Can any of us even conceptualize forever? Is forever a concept like utopia, a place that exists in our imagination where all our dreams come through? Is it the until-the-end-of-time place in the sky where nothing bad happens and we all live forever in harmony? :)

I don’t know. I know that here I stand without my love and there is nothing that I can do about it. Life/destiny/fate made that decision for me without explanation and all I can do is surrender to what IS.

I still plan, but I understand that my plans can and some will fall apart without warning. There is a grand design, if you will, to all our lives, so I am told. I am waiting to see what mine will be.

I looked about the white room once furnished with hope. And it was not tears that came this time, but a question. What now? I do not know the answer, but I know to approach life with humor. Be optimistic. Never stop being a hopeful romantic. Life is going to happen anyway. Flow with it.

How do we change the world?

I learned about The rape of a student over a week ago and I have been haunted by it ever since. Hearing that someone is raped is devastating. Watching a video of a young woman gang-rape by five men tore me to pieces. The release of this tape I hope, is not in vain but will jolt us into taking action and seek justice.

I cannot imagine the horror that she went through, but as a woman, as a human being, I felt the violation, degradation, and dehumanization as if it were my own. It could have been me, my sisters, mother, friends, it could have been YOU. This is not an issue for victims, or for some people, this is gloabal problem that affects all our lives. We can all find ourselves in the wrong place at the wrong time betrayed by people we trust.

Women, men, children are being raped everyday all over the world. A woman is raped every 45 seconds in the United States. 1 out of every 7 college student has been raped. 9 out of 10 women are raped on campus never tell anyone. More than 61.5% of rapes are never reported to law enforcement, according to stats from the Crisis Connection.

The number one reason why victims stay silent is fear of stigmatization and reprisals.

A victim should not be afraid to say I am a victim because he or she will be stigmatized, made an outcast by friends, family, society, be branded a whore or worse, told that she deserves it. No one deserves to be raped.

The Rapist

A rapist will threaten to kill you while he use, misuse, and violate your body and damage your spirit. He will threaten you and your family if you fight for your life.
He will tell you that it is your fault, that you provoked and therefore deserves it.
He may video tape you and threatens to expose you if you tell anyone.
He will take all that you are.
Fear is the abuser's weapon of choice.

Knowing this...how do we change the world?

The rapist, MUST be relieved of his weapon. Unless and until the victim, despite her fears stand up and scream for all to hear the name(s) of her abusers, and what they have done to her, change will not come.
Until she walks into the police station violated and bruised and broken covered in blood and tears, sweat and semen, until she makes it clear that she will not be silent anymore, change will not come.

Suffering alone in the dark is not the answer. Silence is his protection and your imprisonment. Bullies are powerful only when the victims do not fight back.

The Abused Woman

The day that the abused woman, say enough
The day she walks out and never come back
The day she stops hiding her bruises with make-up
The day she gets him arrested and does not drop the charges
The day she picks up a knife to protect her life and forces him into the corner where he’s held her a hundred times...
The day she spills his blood, and make it clear, “never again” the abuser loses his power. Abusers drink the poison but want their victims to suffer the effect. Don't! Silence is not our friend.

Emmett Till

Emmett Till was a 14-year old boy, murdered in Mississippi in 1955 by two white men because he spoke to, or whistled at a white woman. Emmett was shot in the head and his body mutilated beyond recognition. At his funeral, his mother insisted on an open casket, her reason, “So that the world could see what they did to my boy.”

Today Emmett Till is considered one of the “sacrificial lambs” of the civil rights movement. The murder of blacks in 1955 at the hands of white men was routine. What made a difference is that Maime Till forced the world to look at the horror of racial hate crimes. For those not familiar with his story there is a plethora of resources available, one of which can be found here.

The mutilated picture of Emmett Till can be viewed here.

It is disturbing. I encourage you to be disturbed. That is how we change the world.

To change the world one cannot and must not suffer in silence. And we cannot look away from the ugliness of men because it makes us uncomfortable. There are stories that must be told, horrifying images that must be exposed. We need to be uncomfortable in our skin. We need to be haunted. We need to lose sleep. We need to fight back. That is how collectively, we change the world.

Gypsy woman

I came across a picture of Rey and I today. (Rey is the man I dated for nine years). I was sitting on his lap and he was sniffing my hair. His eyes were closed and one could clearly see that he treasured me. We were in love and happy then.

I've had a lot of time to put us into perspective. That’s the thing about maturity, one’s perspective changes with time. Either you'll find the missing pieces to who you are, or the house of cards on which you build your life will come tumbling down.

I used to say that Rey and I could never work, that we were too different...

He was settled and calm.
I was overflowing with passion and longing for adventure.
He knew what he wanted from life.
I lived without expectations.
He planned for forever.
I lived day to day, soaking up life as I go along.
He told me that I live like a gypsy woman.
I told him that he lived like an old man.

We ended tragically, fueled by deception and betrayal on my part. I ran away to find adventure, and ended up in the arms of CX. And if ever there was a price to pay for my betrayal, I have paid it tenfold. CX was insane, and there is not much that one can do about insanity. Some people take pills. Some roam the streets. Some are locked away in asylums, and there are those like CX who blends in with society, his mask tightly in place. And if you are unfortunate enough to see behind the mask, you are marked for destruction.

I stared at the picture of Rey and I, and whispered "I’m sorry," to "US" the way we were, in love and frozen in time.

Rey was the kindest man with unquestioning love for me. He wanted to give me the world, when all I needed was him. I could not convince him that I was indeed a gypsy woman with little or no need for material things. I lived like flame in the wind, tasting and touching and smelling everything.

My reflection about Rey and I is not encased in hope. He is married now, and may never know that I mourn for us sometimes. The pieces of the puzzle did not fall into place for me. No. I found myself standing in the midst of a house of cards that came tumbling down. I was wrong about a lot of things. I had been wrong about us. It wasn’t him. It was me.

Of all the men I left, I hurt over Rey the most. I have forgiven myself, but there is a deep, deep ache inside me that may never go away. I will never forget the look on his face as I walked out of his life with his shattered hopes and dreams, leaving behind an open wound infected with pain.

How did my cheating impact him?
How badly had I damaged his heart?
How many women suffered an emotionally void, distrustful, angry man because of what I did?
Did he have to travel through internal desert and storms to find himself again? Or is he still wandering out there unable to find his way home?
Does he regret loving me?

I may never know the answer to any of these questions.

It was only a few months after leaving him that I saw the hidden monster behind CX's mask. I have been fighting for my life ever since.

We cannot go back in time and undo what is done. And we cannot question every choice or regret every decision that we've made. Sometimes we have to jump off a bridge knowing that we may die.

What if it was my destiny to meet CX? My beloved, son Caesar(C) was a result of that affair. It is said that there are no accidents in life. It is also said that all roads lead to the same destination.

I don't have answers. But I do know that every decision comes at a price.

The irony of Rey and CX is not lost on me.

Return to innocence

My father is not well.
He is 75 years old…
He will survive, but I am in a place where everything is still. And I am forced to think about life and death.

I have spent the night flooded with memories of a man who have shaped my life in the most profound ways. Whose perspective on love and happiness and living has given me a view of the world that is unique and inspiring.

He taught me to love with every drop of blood in me, with every heartbeat. To be passionate about that which is important to me.
He taught me courage and resilience.

He taught me to play chess and build puzzles, so that I can look at any situation and see the big picture, and so that I may always have the foresight to turn negative into positive.

He taught me confidence, self-respect, and self-reliance.

He taught me to love myself even when I am wrong. Forgive my mistakes. Fight for what I believe in. And lose with grace.

He taught me how to find calm in chaos.
How to look beyond the physical and see the invisible.

He taught me that the beggar on the street could've once been a king or a man overflowing with wisdom.

Never be intentionally unkind to anyone and anything. Never. Respect life.

He taught me that emotion and logic are two different animals. Emotions at times can and will lead you astray. Emotions will deny logic when logic is needed. And logic can make one appear emotionally void and disconnected. There is a time, reason, and place for both.

He taught me love in the way he held my hands crossing the street. He told me that I looked beautiful in my torn, dirty dress while cleaning dirt and tears from my cheeks, and wiping blood off my knees.

He taught me security in the way he never takes his eyes off me in a crowd.
He told me that in any trying situations in which I find myself,and in which I am a variable, it is up to me to change the game so that it will work for me. He taught me to turn weakness into strength.

My dad told me that I have magical powers… that I could do amazing things with my mind, create worlds out of thin air.

He told me that I am a princess…and that I was born for greatness. No one has ever been able to convince me otherwise.

“Never question your value, Kitten. Never.”

I remember sitting on the floor at his feet as a child, building puzzles while he reads to me of far-away places and magical lands.

And as I sit here reflecting on life and death, and living and dying, sickness and health, holding on and letting go, I am full of memories, beautiful memories that takes me back in time. And I am innocent again.

I have taken some treacherous paths in my life,but I have never walked alone. I have always had the love and wisdom of a man who lived to experience life. And whose words and guidance will always stay with me.

My dad does not resist, he flows.
He understand the laws of nature and he embrace them.