It has been almost a month since I stepped away from an unhealthy relationship.  I have not once doubted that decision – and I am not one to defame another on social media, so I have refrained from commenting much other than a previous post or two regarding the harassment/harassing behaviors I have endured since December 26.  He is blocked on all social media and his emails do not come to me.  I have blocked his number on my phone, but the voicemails he leaves still come through.  Today, I received another unwanted voicemail (there are over 40 now), and I promptly recorded it to another device and filed a police report.

Pardon the language – but here is the text of the voicemail.

“Hey, you need to get with me about paying that goddamn money back for that fucking windshield.  I’m gonna go by and get a copy of that goddamn receipt if I have to and uh, you’re gonna pay me that goddamn $200 back.  You wanna fuck somebody over, well goddamn you better pay me back my goddamn money or I’m gonna take it out of your ass.  Do you understand me? You wanna be scared of me? I’m gonna make you fucking scared of me.  I’m gonna give you what you wanted, just like you told me before.  I told you I wasn’t gonna be hateful to you, but you wanna act like a goddamn little kid, I’m gonna treat your ass like one.”    1/23/2018 – 12:01 pm.

This has been addressed today – dealt with – and my hope is that it will stop now.  He has been told not to contact me or my family again.

In the past month, he contacted my ex-husband, three of my children, my father, my mother, my brother, my best friend.  All in the name of “concern” for me – thinking that through any of them, he could get me to talk to him.  Lines crossed.  Major lines crossed.  Contacting my 10-year-old son.  Who does that?

And $200?  He wanted me to have the windshield.  I said it wasn’t necessary, that I could drive around with the cracks.  He thought the windshield would fall in on me, so he wanted it fixed.  So now, I owe him back?  When I didn’t even think it was necessary … I just can’t.  There is so much more the nasty in me wants to say, but I choose to not say more.  Just … I can’t.

From this point forward … I will walk with trepidation toward and around relationships.  Trust seems nonexistent.  How could I?  After what I endured in my marriage, and now this – yet another man who swore to love me.   Ha.  I have one Protective Order filed, and if the harassment doesn’t stop, another one will be.  It seems ridiculous to me, and I wonder what it is about me that causes this … is it me?  I am dissecting that.

It crossed my mind today that perhaps I should become a nun.  Hidden away in a convent.  That wouldn’t work though. I would be worse than Maria trying to be a good little nun.  “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” would be nothing compared to Nunnery lyrics written concerning me.

I try.  I really do.  I want to love – to love and be loved … but, I question whether it truly exists and if it does – if it exists for me.   Perhaps, like Maria, my Captain Von Trapp is out there.  Perhaps.  I don’t know.  Maybe after everything I have done, I don’t deserve it.  I don’t know that either.

What I do know today is … I will not be abused again.

RED FLAGS will be noted and heeded with immediacy.

I will listen to the voices in my head and my wounded, distrustful heart.

Here’s to tomorrow.  A new day.  I pray it contains no voicemails.