by Kelly Trickett

Created on: September 27, 2008

Kara lay back on her bed, thinking about her day. At the grocery store, she had glanced at the bagboy and said hello. She had said hello to the postmaster at the post office, smiled and said hi to the lady behind the counter at the gas station, and even said hello to the cranky old man who always hung out at the bus bench on the corner across from her little apartment. To others, this might not seem like much, but Kara was very proud of herself. Progress, one little step at a time, was her motto, and today was a huge day in terms of progress. Normally, Kara kept her head down avoiding eye contact, never initiating conversations, and never, never, speaking to a male. She had been trained for 13 years that to do such things was to invite disaster.

Kara left Jim three years ago. Everyone always told her to pick up and leave would be the bravest thing she could do, and everything else would be easy compared to that; they had been wrong. Certainly, it had been one of the scariest, and it was very hard, but what came after seemed so much harder in retrospect. No one told her that she would lie in bed, thinking of Jim, wondering where he was, missing him, hurting for him; they all said she would be happy she left. When she thought of all the verbal and physical abuse she suffered at his hands, of course she would never want to go back to living in such a way, but still.no one warned her she would feel a void in her life that he had filled.

No one warned her that she wouldn't be instantly fixed by leaving, that her relations with strangers would still be dictated by her past with Jim. They say if you do anything 21 times in a row, it becomes a habit, and Kara did Jim for 13 years, so, yeah, he was exactly like a bad habit. No one told her that when a man on the street, a complete stranger, would raise his voice, she would just freeze, heart pounding, waiting for the first blow, even when the voice was not raised at her. No one had told her that just because Jim was finally gone didn't mean the fear would be gone, too. Maybe they hadn't known.

The first year she might as well have been with him for all the good it did her. But no, at least she had been physically whole, knew she would be physically whole the next day, and the next. Slowly, Kara had become determined to become more than she was. By God, if she could survive Jim, surely she could outlive and outwit the constant fear that still resided in her belly. Little step by little step, she had forced herself to interact with the world, to look at it with clear eyes unclouded by irrationalities. Little step by little step, leading up to today. To imagine, she had actually said hello to a male and smiled at him, too. And guess what? No one was angry; the world didn't end. He had even smiled back.

Kara lay back on her bed, staring and smiling at the ceiling. It was slow and sometimes painful, but oh how glorious, this learning to fly.

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