Weeds

     The day I met him was the day I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. I left the doctor’s office after providing blood samples, and they handed me the diagnosis on a post-it note. It was so impersonal. I walked through the hallway and out to my car without knowing how much my life would change. I sat in my car for hours absorbing the diagnosis of a chronic illness, and I watched my dad walk toward my car through the rain. It was the only time I had ever seen him cry. All my years as an athlete were gone, and I suddenly felt weak. 

     That day was a blur, except for his voicemail. I listened to it over and over for hours. I had admired him from afar for years—the artist and musician, the mysterious man on the street. His voicemail felt comforting, just like hearing from an old friend. He asked if I would play on his new album, and suddenly I was filled with hope—a new project. He continued talking for what seemed like an hour; His eccentricities were so endearing as he rambled on about his childhood. I never knew you could expose so much about yourself in a single voicemail. I knew he was going to be my boyfriend, and I already knew that I loved him dearly. 

     Four years later, I was living in an abandoned garage without a toilet. I slept on a dirty, used mattress on a cold, concrete floor. A few rats scurried about, usually at night, and I used a bucket for a bathroom. It was cold, windowless, and the door was locked from the inside out. Without a key, you could never leave. I often was unable to leave—kept inside all night, alone and sick, while he left with the key for a night out drinking. What if he never returns? He made sure that my phone had died so nobody could find me. How did I get here? 

     The abandoned building I slept in was surrounded by dead plants. Where flowers once grew, there were now weeds. Sometimes I would emerge when he ordered me to buy him food—and I would indeed emerge, like a zombie—completely dissociated from the world. 

     I remember the things that used to wake me up and bring me to tears: a young and carefree girl riding on a bicycle, curiously tilting her head toward me as I left the empty building, a worker at Hannaford who asked in his friendly customer service voice how I was doing. It was the kindness of the outside world that broke my heart. It was a world that I was no longer a part of because I was a prisoner. I would soon return to my prison where he would yell, scream, and demean me. It was relentless. 

     Sometimes, at night, he would open the door and I would see his figure outlined by the moonlight. But it would then be replaced by my mother, a vision of warmth, beckoning me to leave, watching me with worry and curiosity and love, wondering why I was so trapped. I had dreamt of her loving arms at night, and my family cat Daisy, who often waited by my parent’s front door in case I returned home. My parent’s home was a utopia I could never quite reach. I was 10 miles away, and I was homesick every night. I soon grew more ill as stress and sleepless nights weighed on me. My lymph nodes swelled all over my body, and he kept me awake all night—a form of punishment for delivering food he did not like. 

     My years of abuse are a considerable blur at times, but I remember certain moments. I remember the time when he was busy selling art and I left through the heavy, steel door. I walked down the street toward an empty field. Disrupted leaves and seeds from trees blew all around me. A storm was coming. I felt it inside of me, too. I closed my eyes and wanted to disappear into the wild air and fly home to my family, or just fly away forever. I imagined becoming invisible and weightless and his eventual return home to see I had vanished without a trace. He would never be able to find me. He would never be able to make me feel guilty, or depend on me, or scream at me, or scare me, or steal my money, or manipulate me to the point where I lost sense of who I was. I also imagined him disappearing forever. What a relief his absence was.

     After he finally left the state, I broke free, eventually. One year later, I buried Daisy, my loving family cat, in a quiet place in the woods. It took six hours, and I was crying the entire time. It was a labor of love. I was with my mother again, and I never wanted to leave. We walked away from the burial site as a storm blew in. I closed my eyes, and the sadness filled every cell of my body. It was a sadness defined by losing something that brings you unimaginable joy each day. This is what real love is. 

     On the way home, I took a detour and drove by the abandoned building. I felt nothing, not yet, but I would feel something soon enough. These things take time. I pulled around the corner and saw the field down the street, and then, something unexpected. It was a small flower growing in the empty backyard that had been covered with weeds. Where weeds once grew, flowers now blossomed. I wondered if one day I would, too.