Stuck on a boat...

This weekend the kiddo and I took off on a much needed R&R camping trip. We loaded the car up and left directly after work to get on the ferry boat headed towards the woods!

Let me tell you, I've been excited the entire week to get away. I just needed to clear my mind and reset my body. This camping opportunity came at the perfect time, the universe definitely took care of me. However, the universe also threw an opportunity at me that I didn't see coming under any circumstance...

We waited about an hour in the ferry line, which is totally common for a Friday afternoon. C played on his phone and I enjoyed the scenery as we inched closer and closer in line. Finally we loaded on to the boat. We lucked out and got a great spot right in the front on the side. The boat has four main lanes in the middle and on both sides they have a lower and upper deck to park cars. We were the first car on the ramp coming down from the upper deck. I couldn't remember if I had packed the batteries for the air mattress pump and popped out of the car to check the back. As I got out of the car I glanced at the cars in the middle of the boat, one lane over, two cars back sat a white dually truck. I glanced at the driver and it was H2. We made eye contact and my body hit panic mode, my heart raced, my breathing got quick and I couldn't let it show because my 10 year old child was sitting shot gun in the car. I acted like nothing happened, pretended like I didn't see him and opened the back to my car and climbed inside looking for batteries. No luck on the batteries. I got back in the car and locked the doors. Once in the locked car I started second guessing myself, there's no way that was him - on the same boat, that close to me. I needed to check again... after trying multiple camera angles I wasn't able to see the driver of the white truck. I took a deep breath and got back out to "check for the batteries again..." - oh yeah, it was definitely him. This time I noticed he had his third "wife" with him. Thankfully I know him well enough to know he was probably freaking out more than I was and would stay put. I climbed back into the car, texted a couple good friends and worked on calming my breathing down. After he pulled off the boat (thankfully before I did) I felt this rush of relief to the point that I was in tears. I didn't realize that seeing him would cause the chaos in my body that he did. I went back to that chaos that he caused every single day... thankfully I was able to pull myself back out of it and realize it was just a fleeting moment in time. However, that moment seemed like the longest boat ride ever. I was so thankful that we were headed out to a remote campsite with good friends on the boat behind us. It took the entire drive (about an hour) from the ferry to the camp site for me to calm down and get my nerves under control. However, I was able to do it and I got through it without C catching on at all.

I think sometimes life throws you some curve balls, just to remind you that you've got this. I'm thankful that I do truly have this. He might still throw me for a loop, but it's good to remember how I felt during that relationship and how far I've come since then. I've had some trouble calling him abusive, because he wasn't physically, but emotionally he was very abusive and just a retched man. I'm so thankful I've been able to rise up and am not his victim anymore. <3