Moment of Freedom

My moment of freedom only profoundly affected my life and happened on three different days…in three different years.

The first moment of freedom- I was thirteen years old standing in a police station, the officer had just walked in and told me that my stepfather could never touch me again, he was just arrested on six counts of endangerment and molestation…I fell to my knees sobbing as the pressure on my chest both lifted and got heavier.

A pressure that wasn’t entirely mine to carry, wasn’t even my fault I was carrying it in the first place.

I remember repeating to myself what the officer had said for hours and days after-He could never touch me again, I was free. I had survived a thing I thought I wouldn’t. To this day I still believe if I hadn’t stood up and spoken, I wouldn’t have left that house alive.

In the following years I struggled with the nightmares, the anxiety that he would post bail and find me, hurt me. I struggled with the depression and wondering if I’d ever be okay again. On top of all these things…I was in high school and begged for a normal teenage girl life.

When I was a sophomore, he was sent to trial. He was offered a deal but he thought himself above the laws, declined the deal and demanded a trail.

My second moment of freedom started in the conference room of a courthouse, waiting to walk into a room and sit in front of twelve people and once again beg to be believed. Beg to be heard.

Unknown to me for thirty minutes a judge I never had to look at, I never learned the name of was telling him he wasn’t above the laws.

His written and signed confession wouldn’t be thrown out, and if stories told by the officers, I spoke to were true (and she believed them because they told the exact same things) then my presence and my stories were only going to make it much, much worse for him.

She told him to take the offer on the table.

Thirty minutes later my lawyer walked in and told me this story…once again I fell to my knees, but this time I wasn’t alone- my father was there and I was clinging to him for air.

I was free, I was believed. I stood my ground, even with the fears I stood refusing to give in. I can’t tell you the amount of times I almost caved, I was out of the house that should’ve been enough right…but no…I needed to see him held accountable.

This man had beaten me, broken me, blooded me and I needed to see the bruises, the blood, the fears, and nightmares wouldn’t be for nothing.

My third moment of freedom…was the next morning and every morning after.

Every day I wake up and I remember these chapters of my life. But that’s all they are at this point, past chapters.

I used to frequently wish to go back and rewrite them, make it so that they didn’t happen the way they did-that I had told sooner or that they didn’t happen at all.

But now I’m older than that fear filled thirteen-year-old girl and I’m more knowledgeable. The chapters can’t be changed or erased, all I can do it learn from them and keep moving forward.

I can take my chapters and help other people. I can show there’s healing after that sort of pain.

My moments of freedom are forever etched into my brain. My moments of freedom get carried with me like battle scars that I proudly show the world.