Tomorrow will be the 15th anniversary of the first time Avery Peterson raped me. Every single year, my body remembers. It doesn’t seem to matter if I’ve been doing better generally or worse generally. It doesn’t seem to matter if I make distracting plans, try to ignore it and go about my life, or make space to do nothing.

Something feels different this year. It might be denial. I’ve been watching and feeling March 6th draw nearer and feeling a stubbornness, a desire to reject it. It’s not like I’ve never felt that way before, but something about it feels new. What I don’t want to do is write this tomorrow and admit that the day has sucked, that his hands have grabbed my mind and ripped me back in time, again. Like they do every March 6th. Like they do on random days between March 6ths. Like they do when the lawsuit I filed almost nine years ago continues to drag on and on.

I’m tired. I’ve been on this roller coaster for so long. I’ve had periods of healing (mainly when the lawsuit is being appealed and things stay quiet long enough to do so) and periods of going backwards. I’ve had recovery and relapse and recovery once more. It’s now been almost ten years since I began to accept the truth about what Avery did to me, and I’ve had longer to reprocess the memories than my “friendship” with him lasted from a generous beginning to end timeframe of eight years. And I still — still — sometimes gain more clarity about it all.

I’ve kind of never believed that will ever end. That instead I had 16 years to live where I hadn’t been raped and that the rest of my life would just be riddled with intrusive thoughts, memories, revelations about some guy I once knew and what he did to me. My therapist used to encourage me that once the lawsuit was over, I’d be able to heal in a way I’ve never been able to heal before. I didn’t really believe it.

But in the lulls, I’ve seen it start to happen. And even as I write this, expecting some lawsuit update in the coming weeks, I feel a belief, a hope that there is life for me yet lived that doesn’t include much of him. I don’t want to willingly give any space to him. Not tomorrow, not ever.

I’ve been through a lot in my life. A lot of it has to do with Avery. A lot of it doesn’t. And because the lawsuit is not over, there is more to come that I’ll go through that has to do with him. I don’t know if I’ll ever have my last flashback or last nightmare or last intrusive thought or last intentional avoidance of triggers or last March 6th where I can only just pretend to still be present but at least now, fifteen years later, I have hope.

In the time I’ve still been engaged in this lawsuit, I’ve talked about him less. I have friends who have never heard his name. A need to have this part of me understood is not critical to every relationship in my life. The frequency of really debilitating flashbacks is less. The frequency of nightmares is less. I’ve been doing a better job getting myself to take my sleeping medication without ruminating the night after a nightmare. I’ve been to the gynecologist. I know exactly who he is and what he’s capable of. I know who I am. I’ve survived this much.

And, this winter was horrible. Dealing with the summary judgment motion was hugely damaging. I haven’t fully recovered from it, feeling largely like I’m just pretending to be a person most of the time. But I’ve recovered some. I’ve gotten back into a more productive rhythm. I no longer feel like I’m failing to accomplish anything.

And maybe that’s part of my changed drive to reject the March 6th sinkhole. I am still climbing back up from yet another blow to my psyche, and I don’t want to slide back down.

Or maybe part of it is I’ve now truly been doing this for so long and it’s been so much worse than I ever could have imagined, that I have a deeply ingrained knowledge that I can survive it. This may have been harder than I thought, but that means I’m more resilient than I ever could’ve known, too.

And so maybe that’s why I want to at least believe that I can have a fun day tomorrow. And why I want to believe in levels of healing I never thought were possible. I think I’d rather be wrong than give my permission for things to be as hard as I now know they can be.

So I’m choosing to believe in a future where I’ve exorcised the ghost who haunts me still. I believe in a future where I get off of this never ending roller coaster ride and I can heal without disruption. I believe in a time where the first Avery I think of isn’t Peterson. And I believe in a possibility where these things can happen even while the lawsuit isn’t over. I am proclaiming to myself that I am not beholden to this fight. I hereby remind myself that I have a whole life to be grounded in that has absolutely no connection to my rapist. I am stating my intention to stay here, to stand strong, to not give tomorrow away.