It's no big deal, but it kind of affects me

I’m usually in a chipper mood.  I laugh, I smile, I joke and most importantly I use sarcasm as a second language…today I’m in that chipper mood but I’m going to bring it down a bit.  I don’t discuss this often, in fact, my best guy of 7 years didn’t even know this story until 2 weeks ago.  I don’t like to dwell on it and after I finish talking about it I usually make a grand hand gesture over my shoulder visualizing it’s in the past.

I went to IU with my good friend, we lived together, we laughed together, we were stalked together.  Looking back on it, I’m proud of us for keeping our cool as much as we could.  The first night we realized something was up, there was a man sitting outside our place in our chair watching my bedroom. Coincidence, at the exact time I would come home from my late Monday class?  I didn’t see him, our neighbors scared him off.  The second time something was odd, I didn’t realize until weeks later.  My boyfriend was over and while we were in bed I could hear something, I felt like someone was watching me and it sounded like someone was breathing outside the window.  I never mentioned it to anyone but I realized the next morning my bedroom window was open and I knew I didn't imagine the feelings I had.  Our stuff was vandalized, he wrote “I watch what you do, you lesbian” on our patio chair along with other horrible slanders.  Obviously, he watched me enough to know I had a female staying in my bed with me, but not enough to realize she was just my best friend. 

The reason I have nightmares today is because of a single Wednesday night.  I was in bed watching Dirty Dancing with my friend, our security light we had installed out my back door to my room turned on.  She dropped to the floor and crawled across the room to my sliding glass door to look out.  No one was there.  She climbed back in bed and we laid silent, then the light turned on again (my heart races typing this) as we laid there silent, scared of what would happen next, I heard a sound I will never forget.  Not 5 inches from my face was a window, just outside the window I heard a stick break.  Not far away, not a few feet even, but what sounded like in my ear.  I swallowed hard with my hands shaking, I peeped open my blinds and there he was.  I never saw his face, he had a hoodie pulled up over his head and drawn in tight.  I let out the most wretched scream you could ever imagine, threw myself down onto the bed, pulled the covers over my head and kept screaming.  What happened next was a blur, my roommate running in with a bat, my friend shaking me asking if he was really there and a loud thud, as my upstairs neighbor the bouncer from Nicks, jumped over his balcony and began pursuing the stalker on foot. 

I don’t remember much of the cops at my house that night.  They never caught him; they found he had cut a path out of a fence hidden by shrubs just beyond my window for an easy escape.  They found a slit in my window where he had attempted to cut open my screen.  They found food wrappers in the shrubs where they “assumed” he sat and watched me.  But they never found the man that still haunts my dreams.

I finally left Bloomington when I walked in on my apartment being robbed.  I just couldn’t handle the pressure anymore.  I don’t talk about this often and I am not the only person to survive this.  My two best friends at the time lived through the drama with me.  My closest guy friends stayed with us during the nights we were scared and they held me when I cried.  This isn’t just my story, it’s all of ours, it’s only my version.  M&J might remember something different, something less scary or even more so, but it’s something we survived together and that is a constant.

I’m a strong woman.  I still have nightmares.  I don’t let my fear consume me.  I still imagine his silhouette and begin shaking without control.  My heart races when sticks break and I still cover my head when I am terrified beyond belief.  I survived, I keep surviving and I’m lucky, he never touched me.  To those women out there who have similar stories, just keep fighting.  Keep staying strong and keep believing in yourself, only you can overcome your fears.  It’s your life don’t let someone else stop you from living it.

Here’s my grand hand gesture, it’s over my shoulder, it’s in my past…moving on.