The Navy Chance

I don't know if this is stupidest thing I ever did, (outside of marriage) but it has to rank very high.

Maybe if I spent more thought I'd of figured out something better then joining the Navy.

However, my life was about to become a cardboard box on the street so getting into something stable seemed the best idea.

I probably was the worst recruit ever, but I somehow got though basic training because what I'd experienced in Miami, between the cell in the Hotel and the slave factory where I had worked was actually worse than boot camp.

Here, I had people around me, food was prepared, and there were rules.

It took me six months to feel okay about myself.

Six months to stop crying, to stop feeling I made a mistake. Six months, to be able to accept my life and start looking forward to tomorrow.

It was nine months after I left my husband I made the first hesitant calls to my past.

I called my parents.
They didn't want to talk to me.
They had disowned me the day I got married and the fact the marriage broke up didn't mean a thing to them.

Okay.

I had 'lost' them the day of my marriage, so they were already a 'write off'.
Nothing to cry about.

My best friend was warmer.

She told me how my husband thought she was hiding me in her basement and
would spend hours watching the house. She had her own cauldron so couldn't
talk long. She should have left her brute a long time ago, but she, unlike me, was
going to leave in a coffin.

I called a few more people, no one really missed me, or seemed interested, so I felt as if the Navy was the only family I had.

I thought about something I'd heard years ago about not being able to go back;
and I realised it was the truest thing.

For there was no back.

I was a spoonful of milk, taken out of a full cup.
My space was instantly filled.

Nine months after my escape, I was born.

My family was the Navy.
My address was the Navy.
I was the Navy.
There was nothing else out there.

I think it was knowing I had no 'back' to go to, that there was no life for me outside of the Navy which made me excel.

Me, who never excelled at anything before, suddenly was so into the Navy, the training, that I began my rise.

I moved up in the ranks, got further training, kept moving up, getting great assignments.

Now I felt ready.

I hired a lawyer and went to divorce my husband. Whether he had tried to divorce me, or had divorced me, I didn't know, but if he got the documents he'd know where I was and better, who I was.

And if it came to hand to hand... he'd lose.