Creative Nonfiction Piece “(Almost) Freedom” by Victoria James (aka Olivia Paxson)

“(Almost) Freedom”

By, Victoria James (aka Olivia Paxson)

So here I am, with a new key. A key to the future I never thought I would grant myself. I foot new ground, cautiously treading the tiles and patterns that will grid the footsteps of my new life. I nest in this place that should be my own, at least as much as a space you rent can be called “own.” Like a bird, I embellish with found objects and slowly whittle together a place that will soon reflect a space I desire to occupy. But perhaps not simply occupy, but inhabit. Yes. A space I desire to inhabit. Me.
I pay my own rent with the money I make (and actually see now) which, every two weeks, goes into a bank account with my name on it. I mop my own floors, I load the dishwasher the way I want to, and run it, even if it is empty, simply because I can and will hear nothing. I must learn where the light switches are- most of them situated in places no one would expect. For months, I finger flat walls, still learning. Swatting at nothings, I curse out loud at my ineptitude to remember, trying to turn on a light that isn’t there (at least not yet). How odd it is trying to re-condition oneself. Something, that for ten years was so automatic, had become foreign. I struggle, trying to make it familiar once again.
But I had done this before. I had done this when I was pregnant and 18 and we moved into the house he wanted, in the town he wanted, and painted the walls around every light switch I would grow accustomed to with the colors he chose. The same light switches my body still reaches for, on walls that aren’t even the same color.
After enough time had passed, I was able to look back on the events that led to my moving out and finally see. All that had never been what I wanted. For him, I forgot how to want for myself. He made it very clear I had no idea what I wanted. I had come from a broken home and couldn’t possibly know what was important in life, what would make me happy. So I thought if I just tried harder, loaded the dishwasher the way he wanted and ran it only when it was nearly overflowing, never turned the A/C lower than he specified (even if I was pregnant and feeling about to combust from every crevice of my being)[OR: remembered to turn the A/C up to the acceptable temperature before he returned home from work and could scold me for having it a degree too low], that I would finally be what he wanted, and that, eventually, I might want me, too. That had always been what all of it was about—feeling wanted– and I let him make me believe I wasn’t, the same way I let my mother until he strode in on his white horse and I smiled as he carried me away.

I didn’t know it would be all of me. Until recently, I didn’t anticipate ever caring about what I wanted again. In one respect, he was right. I didn’t know what I wanted when I was eighteen, apart from someone to love me, who might make me feel worthy of loving myself. It took seven years to realize I would never get that from him. All I would get was a deep distrust of myself and the latent desires that had been desperately trying to persuade me to move on for the last four years I spent switching up and down those old, familiar light switches, secretly turning the air down in his absence, and hearing how I must have been dense if I couldn’t remember how to fit all of those damn dishes into the damn dishwasher so as to not have to run it twice.
When I finally figured out what I wanted, or rather—allowed myself to listen to and pursue my own desires, I knew it had nothing to do with him, that house, or the relentlessly waning shadow of a woman into whom I had willingly let him break/beat me down. I packed up every last memory from that place, and took away only what I had left to re-build of myself. I tried to convince myself everyday, every god damn day I worked to get away from him, that I knew, somewhere, there must be more “self” left than I could presently feel. Maybe if I repeated this enough times, I would believe it was true.
So, I chose to grid the life I would create upon these tiled floors. Over the first few months I lived here, I found a spot for nearly everything. I organized my prized, antique book collection in my grandfather’s glass-doored bookcase , just as I anticipated I would. I hung my favorite photographs upon the bare, white walls. I have adorned my nest with the silky, red ribbon of desire– the desire to be enough, all on my own. I come and go as I please, simply because I can and I will hear nothing. I have no repercussions to fear.
In those couple months, I had not cried with the frequency or fervency that characterized my life with him. Until last night, I was convinced I had effectively, and with remarkable grace, followed the instructions on how to move on.
It was pitch black in my apartment. I unlocked the door and reached to turn on a light whose switch was not there. For a moment, I felt like cursing at myself, as I usually did, for not remembering by now where to turn on the fucking light. Overtaken, I turned to that very spot on that white, sterile wall, and continued reaching, flicking an imaginary switch to no avail. Harder and with more tenacity I continued, silently balling, scratching my knuckles against that bare, white, wall, attempting to scratch out every time he grabbed my fists and punched me with them, every time he threw me on the ground and kicked me for not ever being who he wanted me to be, and especially every god damn time I let him come back and do it again. In a maddened rage of angst and fury, I helplessly tried to black out every ounce of memory I realized I had failed to erase. I could think of nothing I had ever wanted more badly than this.
Despite my new surroundings, I had failed to forget that I wasn’t walking back through his door, where the light switch on the adjoining green wall is conveniently located. I hated and cursed the builders of this god-forsaken apartment. Who had the brilliant god damn idea to install the light switch some twenty paces from the front door? Incompetent bastards. I hated them.

But mostly, in this moment, I hated my hands. [I hated them for ever holding his hands.] I hated them for relentlessly reaching into the past, when all I wanted to do was build a future. I hated them for reminding me, when I wanted, more than anything I had ever remembered, to forget.

I wanted to turn off those old lights, and turn on my own.

Posted by Victoria in Scholarship, Uncategorized, VJ Insights