I started reading The House of My Mother by Shari Franke, which is very well written and I highly recommend. It’s interesting insight into the experience of growing up with your life being showcased online through family vlogging, as well as the events afterwards involving Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrant that are the real reason we’re reading the book (you know what I’m talking about).
I can’t help that in the back of my mind I wonder what it would be like if I wrote an autobiography about my personal experiences. Probably terrible, because I don’t remember much; like the majority of my adult life slipped into an empty black hole and all I can do is shrug it off. My most vivid memories seem almost … absurd.
For example:
Sometime after 2020, he decided to quit hygiene.
There wasn’t some grand announcement, just the gradual cessation of typical hygiene-related activities. He spent a lot of time with his computer while I was busy with the same soul-sucking chores every day, so I can’t say exactly when it happened.
My first related memory happened in late 2021, while I was pregnant with my youngest. I remember reaching into the hamper, pulling out his shirt, then fighting back gagging and nausea when the smell hit me. I thought I was going to lose it right into the hamper. Holy heck. You would have thought that I had accidentally grabbed a maggot infested rat carcass from how badly I reacted, but nope, it was a t-shirt that had spent too long on a human body.
Thus began my campaign to encourage hygiene without hurting his feelings.
I settled on the word “overripe”, phrased in a roundabout way like, “Hey, you’re kind of getting a little bit overripe, so maybe you should bathe and change your clothes?”
I suppose that I should add a little side note for context: years ago he decided to remodel the bathroom then never actually finished the job. That meant that the shower fixture was permanently left in a closet, and we could only take baths. So if you find yourself wondering why I never use the word “shower” when talking about the past, that’s why.
Anyway, my efforts resulted in nothing. For all I know, maybe he became even more resistant to hygiene because I was hinting that it was something I wanted. I.D.K.
He liked to sneak up on me to startle me while I was sewing, but I started being able to smell him approaching and thus he lost the element of surprise. I dreaded being in the car with him, and began putting the window down to gulp in the fresh air whenever possible, my face turned stubbornly away from him.
I became hyper-paranoid about my own body odor, and was constantly checking myself for smell. I was mortified over the possibility that I also stank. It seemed like the smell was so pervasive that I couldn’t tell where it was coming from anymore.
Eventually, I became less subtle. Eventually I became rather blunt about the fact that he stank bad and was repulsive.
His response?
If I truly loved him, then I would find his body odor arousing.
Alas, my heart was untrue. Q.E.D. 😂
And that was the state of him when I moved out. I couldn’t tell you if anything has changed since. Yes, I’m aware that in a storytelling sense that’s such a non-conclusion to the arc, but that’s how real life often goes. No closure.
It seems a little odd to me, that a situation that included the court ordering me to attend four months of classes for victims of domestic violence is now reduced down in my memory to … body odor?
I am at peace with my memory though. There was nothing famous about what I went through — I was and still am one of the thousands of faceless women who had to focus on survival far too much to build anything else. I don’t have the audience or clout for a tell-all book deal anyway, so I don’t need to remember the sensational details. Besides, going into it too deeply is still more than my nervous system can bear.
By Autumn Rain 