This isn't my usual Sunday letter. But something happened this week that I didn't want to sit on until the weekend, so you're hearing from me a few days early. I thought this Thursday was finally going to be the day. After a very long legal process, I was scheduled to be back in court on September 3 for a contempt hearing connected to my divorce. The divorce was filed nearly three years ago, and the final decree was entered more than two and a half years ago. Since then, there have been...
3 days ago • 2 min read
Three in the morning. Pounding on the door. Then pounding on the window. Jaycee was losing her mind, barking like the house was on fire. I went to the door with Jaycee in my arms. Three deputy sheriffs were standing on my porch. They had a warrant. Harassment. Filed by him. I hadn't hit anyone. I hadn't threatened anyone. I hadn't done a single thing that would make sense to anyone standing outside that story looking in. But the warrant didn't need to make sense. It only needed his signature...
6 days ago • 2 min read
My lawyer emailed me last week to tell me she'd be responding to another filing. Thousands of dollars, again, to answer not just the lateness, but everything underneath it — every argument he's making, on the merits, in case the lateness doesn't end it first. I read the email twice before I understood what she was actually telling me. His lawyer missed the deadline. Not by a day. Not by an hour. By one minute. The filing came in just after midnight, when it needed to be in by midnight, and...
20 days ago • 1 min read
Yesterday was one of those days where everything I sat down to write felt heavy before I even started. The TEDx talk I'm working on, and everything it stirs up. The memory of being told I needed to pay him, like it was already decided before I'd even agreed. The way there was no phone call, no matter how small, that I was ever allowed to have alone. I got a few lines into all of it and it just shut me down. So today I want to write about Jaycee instead. Last year we rode bikes around Hilton...
27 days ago • 2 min read
He stayed over for the first time, and I went to work the next morning like it was any other day. He was gone by the time I got home. I don't think I even noticed the sink. He's the one who told me about it. Said something offhand — that it had needed cleaning, that's all. Nothing sharp yet, nothing cruel. Just a passing comment, like he was letting me know he'd taken care of something. I said thank you. At the time, I thought it was kind. It wasn't. I just didn't have any way of knowing that...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Panama City Beach is supposed to be the good kind of memory. Sand, sun, families laughing their way through a week off. For most people, it's the vacation they dream about all year. When I think of it, my stomach still turns. We were renting a house there. A house that was never really mine, in a place that was never really ours, and I was sitting in the living room writing a letter I didn't choose to write. He stood over me while I wrote it. The letter was to my brothers. It was cruel. It...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
I told you last week I'd tell you what going along with it actually cost me. I've been sitting with how to say this for days. Here's where I'll start. It was my house before he was ever part of my life. I bought it years before I ever knew his name. I had a mortgage on it, the way most people do. I made the payments myself, every month, long before he came into the picture. It wasn't paid off. But it was mine to carry, mine to decide about, mine in every way that mattered. Eddie convinced me...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
It started with questions. How much do you have in investments. Why isn't more of it in the bank. What if something happened tomorrow, would you be able to get to your money fast enough. Eddie asked them gently at first, the way you'd ask someone who clearly hadn't thought it through. Not pushing. Just curious. Just looking out for me. But the questions didn't stay questions for long. Get it out of there, he told me. Put it where you can actually use it. He said it the way you'd say something...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Last week I told you about a phone call with USAA. About the first time I felt something go quiet and cold in me. If you missed it, welcome anyway. You don't need last week's letter to be here for this one. After I sent it, someone who read it asked me a question. I hadn't thought to ask it myself. What did he think was going to happen? Did he think a stranger on the phone would just cave because he got loud? No policy was going to change because a man yelled. No manager was going to hand my...
2 months ago • 1 min read