October 04, 2002 @ 1:41 p.m.
The Bearer of Sweet Tidings

Four years after the event, almost but not quite to the day, I found out the the guy who raped me when I was 15 has been beaten up and run out of town, and is too scared to show his face in the general area where we both used to live.

Needless to say, I spent most of yesterday post-news with a grin on my face. Over lunch my father and I just sat and smiled at each other, discussing the downsides ("he can still walk") with the upsides ("we knew it would happen eventually").

It's nice when you find out your belief in retribution isn't misplaced. Even nicer when you know part of that retribution is the fact that you've gone on to make a good and happy life for yourself despite what's happened in your past. That you're okay with love, and physical intimacy, and sex, and men, and most importantly with yourself. That when the demons come to you in the night, as they sometimes will, you know that you can make them leave again.

Sometimes it still hurts. I don't think about it a lot, but it is there. I know that there's reactions and attitudes I have that are a direct result of being raped. Maybe sometimes they've stopped it from happening again, I don't know. I can't deny that it had a big impact on shaping who I am, not just for the worse but for the better (I am so much stronger than most will ever know). It comes to me in flashes sometimes, and I feel sick, and alone, and vulnerable, and afraid. There's moments of rage that are sometimes accountable and sometimes not. Very occasionally, I still feel like the world is one great big slavering rape-minded beast. But it happens less. Time, love and strength can heal just about any emotional devastation. Every year around the anniversary (which passed very recently without pause or shudder on my part), I reflect on how much further I've come since the previous year. Everything's getting more distant finally.

The memory is more clear some times than at others. When it's at its' most clear is when it's also most painful. I do think yesterday's news is going to make it that little bit less painful from now on.

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