I am quietly panicking about how I am going to get through the next six weeks. October to November is my trigger season.

I was raped 12 years ago. I don’t know what day it was, although I could reconstruct it from journal entries and a calendar if I had to. I don’t want to know. It’s easier for me if it’s fuzzy, if there’s not a single date on the calendar to fear. I do know that early October was about when the man who raped me let on that he was interested, and that Halloween night was when I broke up with the guy I was seeing and therefore became free for the taking, so to speak, and that it happened at some point in the first two weeks of November. I know that this is the time of year I start second guessing myself, when all the what ifs come to a crashing head. If I hadn’t stayed late to do liquor inventory one night. Hadn’t gone to the bar with him another. Had told some of the other girls I worked with that I was interested and heard their horror stories first.

October is also when Harvey Weinstein happened. I stopped using Facebook about this time last year because every. single. post. was #metoo. I’d turn on the TV, look at the New York Times, switch the dial on the radio and I still couldn’t get away from it. Amanda Palmer dropped the video for Mr. Weinstein Will See You Now on October 5, a year after the NYT piece. I still haven’t watched it. I’m not sure when or if I will, but I’m happy it’s out there and that I helped fund it.

October last year is when A and I decided to separate. I spent the first week of November and my daughter’s birthday on the East coast, living in a hotel room. I moved into the place I am now shortly after, and spent Thanksgiving – the holiday that had always been *our* holiday – in Denver with my brother.

By December I’ll be ok. Right now? It’s questionable. So if you’re reading this, reach out and say hello, even if we haven’t talked in awhile. Better yet, do it in a few days, or in a few weeks. It’ll help.

If you want to leave a comment or a like, please do it here rather than on Facebook – I’ll see it much quicker that way.