BEING IN COURT

Freda keeps telling me that I need to pay attention to Kubler-Ross' stages of grief. She says that my marriage is like that. That I am mourning the death of something and someone that died. I know this is true but it doesn't make the pain less. 

Yesterday I had to go to court to make my appearance before the judge and let him know I was following my court ordered stipulated requirements. As I was waiting to be called upon I kept trying to interpret the faces of the DA's side to determine if I was going back to jail or not. I have done nothing to be sent back to jail. My own attorney laughs at me every time I use the word 'felony'. He keeps reminding me that I am not a criminal. On the night my husband had me arrested, the police officers, after my asking what was going to happen to me, had a good riotous laugh by responding that I was going to go to jail for a very long time. Everyone seems to know or think I have done nothing but I am consumed with the notion that anytime I can be sent to jail. I feel nervous all the time. I sat there, in court, waiting to be called upon and I couldn't stop the feeling that I had done something which my husband could use against me. I suddenly had the feeling I had called him up and cursed him out - I don't have his number. I remember going by his home, knocking on the door and punching him harder, even stabbing him -- even though I have no idea where he is. I was sure that I had done something to violate the order of protection and that he, in his absolutely focused agenda of getting a green card, would claim he was still threatened by me and the courts being what they are, would have no choice other than to rearrest me. 

For those in AA this is known as 'drunk dreams'. These are dreams that a newly sober person has in the first years of sobriety. They wake up from dreams sure they had gotten drunk and broken their counted days of sobriety. That is how I feel when I go to court. I am awake but I am sure that somehow I have done this thing that will have me admonished again. I am sure that I have done things to my husband that I somehow can't remember...

I spend many hours of no particular day thinking about what he has done. I think about it in terms of how he behaved as a Muslim man to me, his wife. He made me pay for everything. He allowed me to spend money when he knew he was going to leave. By the situation that he has put me into now, he has caused me to be fired from my job, severely interfered with my ability to make money, and because of the arrest, I can not, even if I wanted to, leave the NYC area until this court issue is over. I can not return to Buffalo, I can not go live with a family member, I can not go to Georgia to be with a friend. Here is the truth, if I loose my job, don't get another (though I have but have not begun yet), get evicted from my home, I am still required to show up in court as required no matter what is happening to me in my personal life.

That fact alone is so insidious and sinister to me that my husband deserves his ass kicked all over again by a small mob of strangers. If I knew I wanted a green card from you, and had married you for false reasons, I would keep my manipulation to a minimum. What I mean is I would not let you spend your money on me. If you gave me things I would say: No. Keep your money. The fact that I lost my job and that he has not seen to my well being absolutely convinces me that his intentions from the start were foul. He kept the keys to our apartment and mailbox and to my car. He goes into the mailbox, comes into the apartment and I am sure he kept the keys to my car so that, if need be, he would have a place to sleep. (I think he also kept them because he believes it is a big important thing to me and I will somehow feel off kilter). If I cared I would leave money anonymously for you in the mailbox or under your door to make sure you had food. There is nothing. Every time he goes into the mailbox it is to remove what he is looking for. Every time he enters the apartment it is in attempt to determine what I am up to or to get things he wants. He never leaves anything. It is all about his needs. I have finally gotten the locks changed. I had to wait until the lease was up because legally, I was told, I could not change the locks while his name was on the lease. 

When I think of the intimate and personal things I shared with him, not only in faith and trust, but in a heartfelt attempt to grow closer to my husband, my skin crawls. I will never share myself again like that. For the first time in my life I don't trust anyone. He raped me of my innocence. He stole from me my sense of ease in this world. He took from me my belief that I didn't have to hide things from people. I have visions in my head now, that the first person who asks me for the time of day is the first person I will strike out towards, like a cobra, like an animal, like my husband did, to me.

And now to say what I don't want to admit. I am in a stage of grief. I fluctuate of course, but I am in the throes of these stages. I know this because while I sat in court, I anxiously glanced at the door each time it opened. Each time I saw a male figure my mind, for just an instant, saw my husband, and for just that instant I was sure he was there to take me home, to say he was sorry, to scoop me away from this judicial diphtheria. To take me in his arms and make my hurt go away. It is not him. He will never come. I keep forgetting. He is dead.

This stage, to my deepest grief, is called denial.