“Lord, I’m On “E”…Can I Get a Refill…Fulfilled?” Blog Series Part 7
*This entry is a part of a continuous series, reading the previous entries will help you follow without missing a beat*
The year was 1987 and drugs were all over. The guys were driving flashy cars and dressing really nice, smelling good and writing their phone numbers on $20-100 dollar bills depending on how they were balling and how much they wanted to impress. I was hanging around the way when this dude with a tricked out maxima pulled up on me.
“Hey baby, can I holla at you for a minute?” I looked into the car and saw this fine chocolate dude so I slowly walked over to the car with my hips swinging to the beat of their own drum. He gave me his number on a $100 dollar bill and told me to call him later because he wanted to treat me real special. I couldn’t wait to call him when I got home! That night we talked for hours about anything and nothing. We set up a date for the following weekend. The day came for our date and he took me to a place called Crisfields to eat seafood. We had a great time and then he took me home. I didn’t hesitate the next day when he asked if I wanted to go to the movies.
My mom was home so I met him around the way and we drove to Virginia to the movies. On the ride back he put his hand on my thigh and said, “girl, I’m gonna make you mines” and I was in heaven. Instead of taking me right home he said he wanted to stop by his place to change. I didn’t think anything of it. We get to his place and he goes straight to the back while I sit on the couch. Walking back out towards me with no shirt on, he lifts my chin and kisses me sweetly. His tongue dancing with my tongue and then he trailed kisses down my neck that felt so good. I remember him standing me up and us kissing and walking to his room. I was ready but when he started nibbling on my breast through my shirt and the thought hit me that I wanted to do things differently this time…I stopped him. “Not tonight, let’s go slow and continue to get to know each other”, I whispered trying to straighten my clothes. He lifted my shirt anyway and I hit his hand and said, “Stop, I’m serious! I’m ready to go home” but just as I went to stand up, he shoved me back on the bed. “STOPPPPPPPPP,” I yelled, kicking and squirming under the pressure of his body weight. I screamed again only for him to put his hand over my mouth, look me in my eyes with a deadly look saying, “shut the fuck up, this MY pussy and I’m taking it tonight! Scream again and I will kill your ass!” I followed his gaze to the nightstand where there was a gun partially visible under his t-shirt he had taken off.
The rest went by in a daze as he lifted my tennis skirt and ripped my panties off, tears streamed down my face. I didn’t move. I couldn’t move. I was numb. He finished his business and went into the bathroom taking the gun with him. Good thing, because I probably would’ve been writing this book from a jail cell. I took my ripped panties and wiped the blood and semen from my legs and I began walking home in a daze. I don’t remember how long it took to get home because he didn’t live close but I walked and walked and walked right into my house, into the shower and then fell on my bed crying myself to sleep. I was afraid to tell anyone for fear of them saying I caused it, it was my fault. A part of me shut completely down that night. The hole in my soul was getting wider and wider. I never told anyone about the rape, actually managed to block it completely out of my mind until a few years ago.
Shortly after, I started having chest pains and I went back to the doctor for them to diagnose me with Mitral Valve Prolapse and put me on a portable heart monitor for a little while. I hated that thing! My principal at Eastern High School called me into the office one day because he thought I had a walkman on and he was going to discipline me until I explained that it was a heart monitor. I was so tired of stuff happening to me and I really believed that I was not worthy of love, “in my mind” my thoughts were what had I done for God to allow all of this to happen to me, so many people to dislike me including my mom and dad.
I was a mess! I was having sex like a nymphomaniac and not even for the joy of it but more for the feeling in that brief few minutes that someone loved me. Then I met my first real boyfriend and he loved me so much that he started hitting me when I would do something that he didn’t like. We had a rocky relationship to say the least; full of fighting, yelling screaming, death threats and all. We had a big argument and broke up after about 1 1/2 years and one morning I cut school to have sex with this guy from school that flirted with me my entire 3 years in high school. He was cute, sexy and most of all, he wanted me. That night my abusive boyfriend came back crying about how sorry he was and we too had sex. That was the day I conceived, I was 17 and pregnant. My High school counselor told me how disappointed she was, how I had just made the biggest mistake of my life and was not going to graduate with my class but end up a statistic.
Well, I used that to fuel my drive and was determined to prove her wrong. March 7, 1988, I gave birth to the most beautiful girl in the world, my daughter SeKeithia. June, 1988 I graduated with my class. I didn’t have the first clue about being a mother but I knew I loved my baby and I was going to do right by her…if only I really knew what love consisted of.
To sum up my childhood, there was a paternity test done to identify the father between the high school crush and the abusive boyfriend who dragged me out of a club, beat me and finally broke my collar bone in a public fight in the street over him cheating. In another fight I tried to stab him with a butter knife after he smacked me. We finally broke up for good because I was tired of fighting; after all it was evident that he didn’t love me.
I end this chapter by returning to the rescue of the “Little Girl Lost.” This is a continuing journey because the little girl did not get lost overnight, therefore you will not heal her overnight so allow yourself the time and space to nourish and heal, to cradle your wounded parts like a newborn child with delicate touches, loving hugs and kisses. You can choose to begin the reflection process and rescue alone or with a trained counselor. At some point you will need to call in the troops to assist in the rescue (we’ll talk about that later).
Just a few years ago, I began the process through reflection and dissection. I had to cut through a lot of weeds and bushes of pain to get to her but I finally found her balled up in a corner of my psyche in the fetal position still weeping. I spoke gently to her, coaxing her to lay her head on my shoulder, to trust that I wasn’t there to hurt her. I told her that she was loved and adored, how God formed her wonderfully and fearfully. I began to nourish her with all that I had learned as an adult.
We spoke about all of the things that she had endured, all of the feelings that she had felt, and I allowed her to just cry…let it all out. This was the beginning of something real…
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