Life is a journey. Words are the map!

He was a master manipulator. It was only because I finally saw what was behind that receding hairline that I could observe Jay's behavior from a disassociated stance. For years, I was in his trance instead. Slowly, as I began to unwind my involvement with him and look more closely, I watched Jay convince others he was believable, even lovable. I watched him form what appeared to be genuine tears that were compelling enough to elicit actual sympathy. I saw him shake hands with people with the highest degree of earnest, knowing full well that the handshake meant nothing. I listened to his thin lips tell lies that served his ego and throw others, including me, under the bus. I learned to read the micro expressions that 99% of his friends, family, and business associates never knew or suspected were lies. I rated the facial anomalies that covered up his lies like it was a game. Good one, I might say to myself. Or, you could have done better with that one. My observations of him were wise, discerning. They represented personal growth, a breaking free from emotional toxicity, but would calling Jay out be stupid? It was. That is when I became his challenge versus his doormat. No skilled liar likes to have his balls cut off.

Truth be told, I was no saint, a confessed sinner of the Baptist variety. A small-town girl turned country just as capable of lies. But I had a moral compass. My lies served to keep from hurting others' feelings, not to hurt them. I would never intentionally hurt another human being. My blood was not corrupted; my veins pumped clean. I was no half-breed, no one’s underestimation. I was not going to lie down and die. I was a lover and a fighter. Love was worth fighting for. Hurting someone is wrong. Lies are lies. And even wrong adults need to be accountable for the hurt they cause, right? After 14 years with Jay, I had this right, didn’t I? The right to call him out.

My brain had catalogued snapshots of the worst of humanity from childhood, still as real to me as though they happened yesterday. They would never be forgotten. They were ingrained in my amygdala like the fine lines now surrounding my brown eyes and thinning eyebrows. Hidden from the view of my unsuspecting friends, my childhood scars were a glaring imperfection to a psychopath who needed a lover to serve as a cover story. The irony is that I had buried the pain of my past and stashed it in the annals of my brain so that it would not be discovered. But this is exactly what attracted Jay to me. He saw that I was a survivor. A woman with moxie. Grounded, intelligent, logical, very accepting of others, and slow to judge. There is beauty in all of us, I would say, looking at a child with Down’s Syndrome or a man with missing legs, such as my own brother. Empathy was my dead giveaway.