Super

Last year I wrote about domestic abuse and Super Bowl Sunday. Four years ago Super Bowl Sunday was a bad day for me. I was married at the time, and my husband went on a tirade that lasted almost two hours. For the first time, I knew he would physically harm me. Not that he could, for any one could. But that he would, if I stayed with him. I wonder if I ever would have left, had I not had that concern. We will never know. He never did hurt me physically, by the way. Later when we talked about it, he was offended and said he never would do that, that he had never in his life touched a woman that way nor would he.

Since then, I did not watch the Super Bowl at all the first year, and just a bit the second and third years. Maybe a few minutes here and there, but it had such an unpleasant connotation for me that I couldn't really participate. I haven't watched any football at all as such for that time either. I like a little football, or I used to. My younger son played in high school, so I learned the game, and his dad and I were his greatest fans. But I have lost touch with it to the point where I don't even know who still plays for my city's team, the San Diego Chargers, or what kind of seasons they have had over the past few years.

I have a memory for dates, which means if I know your birthday, I won't forget it. On February 1 of this year, a Friday, I remembered that it was February 1 on that unpleasant Super Bowl Sunday. I was at work for a couple of hours, when a migraine hit me. I used to suffer migraines once or twice a month, but since I got out of my marriage, it has been more like once or twice a year. But this past Friday I had a horrid one, the kind that doesn't creep up, but hits suddenly and hard. I think it came on because I had begun to think back to that February 1 four years ago, and I began to feel some of the horror of that day, what I didn't fully feel the day that it all actually took place. I used to have a way of becoming very stoic, and I would think I was being strong, but all I was being was shut down so I didn't have to feel the sadness and the badness. So I could hold it all together. A necessity at the time, but not anymore. This past Friday, I really felt it fully for the first time. I suppose I was ready. The migraine lasted five or six hours, then it was over, and so were the feelings. I was okay. The next day I was fine.

Then Sunday came around, and without really planning to, I found myself watching the Super Bowl. And enjoying it. Did you watch any of it? I liked the Gangham dancing pistachios and the VW commercials. Beyonce was wonderful, and how fun to see the Destiny's Child girls back together. The power failure helped turn things around for the 49ers, and it turned out to be a game after all. It was nice to watch football again, and have it be fun. It was great to watch the Super Bowl and not have bad memories or sadness. I guess those feelings I had on Friday needed to be felt. And it's wonderful that I am not carrying that icky stuff around, not participating fully in life because something bad happened to me. I don't want to be that person. I don't have to be that person.

Isn't it wonderful that we can get over things, that we can work through them? That the past doesn't have to cast a shadow forever? So the Ravens won, and the Niners lost. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. But there's always next year. For them. And for me, too.

Susan