This month marked the second month of being able (albeit just barely) to float the sanctuary all on my own. Kinda a big deal for me and this here house.
Almost two years ago, I drew a line in the sand with my then partner, and refused to endure a single moment more of the abuse, exploitation, misogyny, gaslighting, lovebombing, or fragility. I packed a bag and left, refusing to return until things changed. I rented a room with a friend, just to show how serious I was. I had never done that before and I never ever could have even imagined his response to me drawing a line in the sand. Short story version, he didn't get the message and/or didn't know how to navigate the work of the day, and things never got better. I waited for him to move out, and then I moved back home. And the place was all Lorax's and mine, so long as I could figure out a way to float it. As the dust settled, I made a firm decision to dedicate the space as a survivor sanctuary; a place for survivors to dedicate their energy and processing to the rebuilding of their lives post abuse.
I made this decision because 1) I needed a sanctuary and 2) I knew so many others who needed one too. I needed a place where I could do the very hard work of changing inherited and socialized patterns that had made me vulnerable to a particular variety of masculinity that unapologetically abuses and exploits femme folk through interpersonal violence. I reflected that I had endured four consecutive abusive domestic partnerships and that each of these relationships had come on the heels of the last. And, that all of these individuals had found a hold in my life under the guise of the savior narrative. When I was 15, my all grown~up boyfriend offered escape from my family of origin, and with a baby in my belly, he said he was gonna take care of us now. Whelp, that didn't happen. One day the neighbors called the police for the last time and that day, I told the truth when they got there. He was sentenced away for a few, and I was afraid. Genuinely and reasonably afraid of him after doing something as horrid and punishable as telling the truth of what he had done to me. I was almost 18, and our kiddo was 2. I was in a pretty bad spot economically with no money for rent, and no way to protect myself from him or even keep him from coming back to our apartment after his release. Right about that time a new person showed up in my life. Same as the last, he said that it was all gonna be alright, and that he was gonna take care of us now. He moved right in, paid the rent, and I wasn't even afraid of the impending release date anymore. And so it became a pattern of escaping one abusive relationship only to be groomed right into another. I've worked through a whole lot of shame about this, but the simple way to understand it is this: imagine you're down, head under water, and you know deep in your bones that your death is near when suddenly a hand reaches into the water to pull you up. You get to breath again. All you need to do is grab that hand, and sweet air will fill your lungs. Do you hesitate? Do you wonder in that moment who's hand is reaching for you, their motivations or trustworthiness? Do you have the luxury of waiting for them to prove to you that they mean you no harm before letting them pull you up? No, you don't. You reach for that hand and hang on to it as if your life depended on it because it does. Partner #2 saved me from partner #1 who a year later was sent away for 2 attempted murders, and I knew in my bones that my death was near. But as it goes, partner #2 was only a slight improvement of previous conditions.
There were four life devastating cycles of this. Becoming a radicalized and educated feminist didn't stop the cycle, nor did dating exclusively within the activist community. I found that there is no real sanctuary from patriarchy and no place exists in which a person's expressed ideology can be taken as evidence of their practice. It takes more than that to uproot centuries of socialized behaviors and ways of being in the world. The cycle continued and continues, even in these spaces and places.
Then one day, I knew that I had to draw a line and put myself on my own side. On the side of my grandmothers and their grandmothers, and all the way back. When I drew the line in the sand that day nearly two years ago, I wasn't only drawing it between myself and my then partner, I was drawing it between myself and the patterns that have made me vulnerable to the reach of toxic masculinity and IPV. I was gonna sink, or I was gonna swim, and at that time I was truly okay with either, but I sure as fuck was done being prey to the savior narrative. Hence, the sanctuary. I took hiatus from a lot of my work and relationships. I burrowed deep down into a small circle of friends who I could talk to about this stuff, cultivating self discipline and commitment to the work of unpacking and processing the abuse of my last relationship. I created space for others to do the same. I immersed myself in the work of nesting and gathering, tending and pruning. The sanctuary held checks and balances that prevented certain patterns of mine from reproducing familiar outcomes in my life, and a mostly supportive environment in which to do this work as the space has been predominantly free of cis~het males and shared only with other survivors. Two years of this, and while I still have days of feeling wobbly and like I'm walking on new legs, I've made it to the other side.
My work is in good flow and I can keep the rent paid and lights on even without continuing to offer residencies at the sanctuary. The crazy making effect of gaslighting has cleared, and I'm not even afraid anymore of the consequential retaliation and punishment of standing in and telling of my truths. There were many good friends who held and supported me in a variety of ways over these last two years, and without them, I may not have made it out of the wilderness intact.
So today as I mark the second month of floating this place on my own, I'm feeling good about indefinitely suspending the residency program I've been offering here at the sanctuary, and giving more space to the playschool and my work in that world. I've found that I cannot fully and in a good way keep up with a residency program and the playschool. I will still offer 72 hrs of emergency sanctuary for folks fleeing unsafe domestic situations, so please do continue to connect folks with me who are in need of a temporary safe space. I find a lot of joy in this giveback.
I'm just ready and equipped to be a bit more fluid with myself in my hearth and home. I trust myself a whole lot more and find that I need fewer checks and balances as I've watched a lifelong pattern of mine, intergenerational for my lineage, be starved out and die.
This is a mighty big first for me to be grounded and supported by my own work, and to LOVE the work I do. To be two years out of exploitative domestic partnerships, and in relationships that regenerate rather than exploit.To be two years into the lifelong work of understanding how and when to flow and open, and when to be firmly grounded in my boundaries. To be a few days away from the day your eldest turns 18 and in her you see you, but she has you to be there with her through it. Yikes, and okay. We do this.
Here we are. This is us, now. Onward.
