“The sunsets come
The sunsets go
The clouds roll by
And the earth turns old
And the young bird’s eyes
Do always glow
She must fly
She must fly
She must fly”
Lyrics: White Bird, David and Linda LaFlamme
Diana had been planning her escape for months. She’d been secretly saving most of the money she earned from her part time jobs and reaching out confidentially to people she knew she could trust to try to find some help. She’d meant to make her move later on, when she’d saved more money up, but suddenly her intuition was screaming, “Get out. Get out NOW!” and so she moved the planned timeline up a bit and made arrangements with a friend who had a car.
Her mother had always been volatile and violent and verbally abusive but things started escalating exponentially after Diana hit her teen years. Actually, she did everything she could to try to please her mother and stave off the rages but most of the time the transgressions, either real or imagined, were just unavoidable. And the violent rages came more frequently and started taking on some even more disturbing features.
As it was, she’d become no more than unpaid labor for her mother and the family. She looked after her younger brother, did the cooking, the laundry and much of the housekeeping. Her parents had pulled her out of public school when she was only 14 after she was caught rebelling by skipping classes and smoking cigarettes and (of course!) lying about it. She was also caught sneaking out at night to go to hang out with friends after everyone else was in bed. She really did not like public school much, full of bullies and boring standard books and lessons…but after she was extracted from school she was then given the lion’s share of the house duties since she was the one at home all day. Her mom and dad both worked, brother in school and she could complete her correspondence school lessons herself in a fraction of the time it would have taken to complete the lessons in school.
She resented being used and secretly took ever opportunity she could find to rebel without getting caught. She had her first sexual escapades and started smoking pot and got into her mother’s box of assorted prescription pills she found under her bed when she was vacuuming one day.
For the most part the rebellious episodes ended up being fairly self destructive. Other times she tried just reaching out to find friends she could confide in. Most people, when they heard about what she was going through, reacted with oozing pity (Poor, poor thing). This made her feel angry and misunderstood and less willing to talk about it. She did not feel weak and she did not wish to be treated as such. She knew she was strong and she just needed to hold it together long enough to get out….and then she’d never go back. She’d move on.
Then she’d write a brand new story for herself.
One afternoon, while she was cooking dinner for the family, her mother came home from work in a foul mood. This generally meant that no matter what, she’d find some reason to escalate into a rage and then there was no stopping it until it played out. Her mother was totally unpredictable but when something angered her the trajectory was totally predictable.
Diana was washing pans and her hands were in the sink and instinctively ducked when her mother passed behind her. She was already anticipating the abuse but her involuntary reaction seemed to escalate it. After the usual slapping, screaming, kicking and hair pulling this time her mother made her sit on the floor near the dining room while she continued to rage on, screaming, verbally ticking off a list of Diana’s transgressions and shortcomings and concluding that she was, “knowingly doing this all on purpose, out of spite”. Her mother’s tirade continued and at some point, going back and forth between the kitchen and dining room, she came in with a butcher knife and started waving that around, above Diana, using it to gesture wildly.
Less than a week ago it had been a large cast iron frying pan instead of a knife. (Her mother had very strong right arm muscles from bowling several times a week…)
All the same, Diana was completely convinced that if she did not leave soon her mother would go into another rage and kill her.
So the very next day she contacted her friend with the car and her cousin’s old roommate who had said she could stay with her, and she made immediate arrangements. They scheduled the car for the day after that at a time when her brother was in school and her mother was at work and after her lunchtime (she frequently would come home at lunch to check on Diana).
There was not a very large window of time if she was to get everything out to the car before her brother was due home. She wanted to avoid running into anyone. She only had one chance to get this right and if she was to carry several loads of clothing and possessions down the stairs and out to the waiting car she had to move fast.
When the time came, her heart pounded as she raced back and forth to gather the piles of things she’d set out. Knowing her brother would be home soon she basically left the closet doors agape and the front door unlocked not caring, in her haste, about anything except getting out.
Her friend stayed behind the wheel, keeping the car running just in case and when Diana finally threw the last pile of dresses and sweaters into the back seat, slammed the door and then climbed into the front passenger seat she breathed a sigh of incredible relief.
“Let’s get out of here!”
Her friend stepped on the gas and off they went, laughing nervously to release the tension. They’d managed to pull it off. She was so relieved. As they crested the hill on Quimby street she turned back and watched her childhood home getting smaller and smaller in the distance and then turned around and looked at her friend, who was smiling at her.
It was time to stop looking back and dwelling on past hurts and pain. She was ready to look forward into a new future she would create herself. She was eager to get started.
Her friend and new roommate (both were older than Diana) both convinced her that she needed to call her family, now that she was safe, and tell them she was okay. She didn’t want to do that. She didn’t want to face them even on the phone, but she knew they were right. If she was to walk into her new life she needed to own it by being brave enough to face them and close that door.
And so she did.