Bit by bit, life erodes these ideas one has. Dreams, goals, aspirations, all grand schemes are subject to moderation, and the changing climate of life. Today as the weather outside dips, and moisture freezes on the window panes, I find myself with little to say.

I awake, and drink my coffee, smoke my cigs and go about the morning routine that has defined me these last couple months. I sense a malaise I can not escape. This is no longer just about Tim, as much as it is about the hard, sometimes destructive, nature of living ones life.

Lately it has seemed as though my focus has been on the wrong things, and I have suffered tremendously for that. Loneliness and desire have eviscerated every salient soul that has come my way.

Practical and wiser heads have shook their heads in dismay, and tsk tsked my aborted attempts at the re-establishment of a meaningful companionship. Yet, I have plunged into that murky pool, again and again, and had pieces of me ripped, torn and battered, till today I find myself crying “UNCLE”. I’ve made every single mistake one can possibly make, and with a blinded instinct, now rolled myself up into a ball and finally declared defeat.

I do not fear being alone, I just have never desired it. It’s not who I am, nor what I want. All well and good to imagine it as some sort of ideal perhaps in this modern world, but all the fairy tales I lived and breathed as a child did not end “and she went merrily along her way, on her own, happy in the solitude and single life she had always desired”.

Tim stripped me bare of a lot of things I had once had. He lied and cheated his way through life, and at the end of it, I cared for him, and helped him in that difficult passage towards his final days. I suppose, if I’m honest, I thought for that I could maybe expect alittle more than food and shelter, a job, and a snug bachelor pad on a cold night. Not to say that I’m not grateful, just that I want more.

Although, While I’m not delusional enough to believe life owes me anything, I still held dreams that maybe the powers that be would allow me that one thing that has eluded me; peace of mind, happiness, companionship, love.

I also want to at this point apologize to those handful of people who know me personally who read this blog, because this will be the first time they hear of this. Some things are just so difficult to say out loud though, and for me anyways, can only be understood once they’ve been written down. This space is where I speak my truth, and this particular truth is very difficult for me to say out loud.

This last weekend something happened. I don’t really know yet if I completely understand it yet myself. I didn’t dress proactively, I was not looking for anything beyond some fun with a new group of friends from my hometown. I’m even quite hesitant to use the word “rape”, but when someone takes you home and does what they want, without your conscious consent, is there another word for that?

Out with a group of friends, having fun, and without any intentions beyond having fun…this weekend I found myself in a situation I am today having a great deal of difficulty sorting out in my addled and bruised soul. Waking up in a strangers bed, bloody and bruised, and with no conscious knowledge of the events that led one there, is rather unsettling. It’s taken me these last days to sort it out, even though I may never know what really happened.

First, I do want to make it clear, I don’t believe this person beat me up. I do believe I fell, but today this is entirely beside the point.

It was not just an average one night stand, and god alone knows how embarrassed I am to even write any of these words. It exposes me, but I need to write them.

This person and I had chatted the next morning and I learned his name, his profession and was given some slight details of the events of the previous evening. Yet, it wasn’t until I looked in the mirror when I was at home that I saw my face, and I realized a few details had been left out. Like how my nose got the scratch on it, why it was all numb, why was their blood around my mouth, and how exactly my porcelain front tooth had been knocked out? Perhaps I fell. I recall him saying something to that effect. I’m not sure it’s really that important any longer. I don’t care for the details, since the result remains the same. Nothing will come of it, as I have no intention of doing anything other than sulking away and perhaps becoming celibate. I have little grounds to do anything anyways.

The reason I’m writing this is that it has only been in the last 24 hours that I’ve been able to come to terms with the facts. Plus, knowledge that my tail bone is broken because I fell off a barstool. So, this individual knew I was inebriated, and still felt it was ok to “get his rocks off”? I remember the next morning he even told me “I’m sorry, but I haven’t had sex in more than a year”. As if that somehow makes it all ok. Than after I told him a little about my experiences of Tim dying of Pancreatic Cancer, he says something like “I’m sorry you’ve been through so much”. Did he now feel guilty for his actions? Maybe. Fantastic that he can now say he’s had his rocks off and … what? This enforced celibacy somehow robbed him of decency? He’s excused now?

He’ll get away with it, as all the others of his kind get away with it every single day. I have, like many woman in my position, little grounds to do a damn thing about it. Even today, in my mind, calling it “rape” seems overblown. There is no one word in the English language that encompasses this sense of entitlement some men have towards their loins, and this seeming non-control they have over their primitive libido’s.

So now, with my pirate smile, and my bruised nose and ego, I will go on. Fumbling towards an ecstasy I no longer desire, or want. I’ve finally arrived, battered and laid bare, at the place I never wanted to be. Alone, yes. But I’m not a quitter. If there is one resource I have still at my disposal, it is my strength, and my character. The person I am inside is still the same, yet she has been abused and used, and she now just wants a hug with no strings attached. A friend who truly cares and doesn’t require anything more than to be a friend. For when you are in need, a friend is indeed a gift.

Yet, I have to wonder, what is it that makes men feel compelled to take advantage of someone when they are so inebriated? Would this man recognize himself in these words? If he were to read them? Would he see the truth in them? Would he be able to acknowledge that he took advantage of someone?

This man told me he was a lawyer. He said “was”. I told him that my great-grandfather was a Judge, and practiced law right here in London. When he drove me home, I realized he lived right around the corner from where my Great Grandfather, the Judge, once lived. I hope he haunts the buggers dreams till the end of his days. I hope he wakes in the night screaming in terror, in a cold sweat, scared out of his mind.