Finding Leadville Chapter 4: Never Again

The author 5 years before running Leadville during the summer outlined in this chapter

It was 5 years before Leadville.

I was standing inside an apartment door in a suburb north of the Twin Cities, trying to open it. A man’s body towered over me, six feet plus, and every inch of it packed with muscle, his two hands holding the door shut. 

“Let me out,” My voice was sturdy but with a flicker, like a blue flame powering it from the inside. 

He pressed the door with a large flat hand, refusal in his eyes, not saying a word. My eyes filled with tears, pissing me off even more. Was that triumph on his face?

He began to coo, “Let’s talk” in a much-too-soft, untrustworthy kind of way. The flame inside of me sputtered, enlarged. 

“Let me out, NOW” I attempted to push him, a ten-finger palming against an iron chest. It was in vain. His body too strong, too big, to grant me access out the door. I was trapped. 

“God damn it,” All breath and barely words.  I crumpled to the ground in defeat. 

My body thrust me back in time to the quiet farmhouse in Western Massachusetts. My heartbeat quickened as my psyche remembered: I felt bound there, too. Bound to the house on a dead-end street, to a patriarchal religion. My voice seemingly powerless. I could shout, I could scream, but, as a child, it would warrant a spanking, a verbal warning, confinement in my bedroom. Anger was a suppressed emotion. It was not to be accessed; if it was, it was a punishable offense, unruly for a young lady, and disrespectful. 

There, defeated and down in Minneapolis, a thought occurred to me: I was physically reliving something from my childhood. But I was now an adult. I could do something different right now. It was like realizing you were in the middle of a lucid dream: I can change how this goes.

I came back to the room from a haze of disassociation. He was moving away from the door, sensing victory. I held the overnight bag I had brought close to my chest, my mind working as I kept my gaze downwards, compliant. He softened, extending his hand to help me back up and into his arms. 

Not happening. 

In one swift motion, I pulled myself up by the doorknob, twisted it, thrust the door open, and ran down the hall toward the stairs. I got into my car, locking it as soon as the door swung shut. As I drove away, I vowed: this was it. There was no safe love in his presence. There was only possession and control. This was not the woman I am meant to be.

The week before, we were at the State Fair, enjoying ourselves. The warm day turned into a sparkling night. Sipping beers and eating fried food, we wandered, playfully, from bovine exhibits to amusement games and shopping stalls.

As we exited the fairgrounds late that night, he began to show signs of drunk aggression. He argued with me, pressing about something, forcing the attention of others our way. No matter what I said or did, it seemed to stroke his fury further. He stomped, he yelled, it reached a nasty high. I was feeling exposed, as though his biting words were stripping me of my self-respect word by word. Boarding the shuttle back to his neighborhood, I had had enough. I refused to sit with him. 

That really set him off.

On the shuttle, in front of a crowd of glassy-eyed, well-fed Midwesterners, he harassed me from his spot across the bus. I leaned my forehead into the window glass, doing my best to ignore him. 

He continued, relentless.

A man sitting next to me on the aisle seat stiffened, sitting up tall, as though to help block me as nonchalantly as possible. He did not budge -- nor do I remember him saying anything -- staying firm beside me as I tried to ignore the drunken rants. 

When the shuttle pulled up to our stop, I got up, excusing myself and eying an apology to the lingering fairgoers. Like so many women before me, I felt the weight of responsibility for his behavior, as though I had to be the one to smooth out how everyone on that bus felt. I calmly walked past them, a tight-lipped smile the best I could offer. 

Once on the pavement, I walked ahead, my phone out and the Uber app pulled up. He began to plea for me to stay with him. 

“No,” I was firm. 

Again, rage. 

He grabbed my arm. I pulled away. The night blurred as I stood my ground, waiting for the Uber to arrive, and darting from his grasp every time he tried to grab me. 

Someone saw: a young man on a bicycle. He became my voice, amplifying everything I was saying, positioning himself between us, just like the man on the shuttle, but more vocal: She doesn’t want to go with you, man. Leave her alone, dude. Walk away. 

And then, turning toward me, gentle eyes: Are you okay? Do you need a ride? Can I help?

The Uber pulled up. I got in, shaking, and the tears finally released. The driver was an older gentleman, Indian, my father's age. He watched me in the rearview mirror, concerned: Do you have someone you can call? I’ll make sure you get inside okay. Here’s my card, please let me know if you need anything. 

Once inside my apartment, I was suffocated with distress. How could I let myself get here? How could I allow someone to treat me like this, how could I not see all the red flags, the signs? Didn’t I know better? Red-faced, I was pissed -- but, I was also scared that I had been too brazen in my dismissal, that I upset HIM in the process of leaving. In the slurry of confusing emotions, I attempted sleep. 

The next morning I awoke to a barrage of texts and missed calls. I opened the window, let the bird song roll in, and poured steaming coffee into a mug that said “You are Gorgeous.” But I felt ugly, needy, the rise of shame a muddy thing. I agreed to see him again, hoping an apology would rinse me clean.

Instead, he told me that I had an anger problem. It was a bullet meant to disarm me. A comment, I believe, meant to trick me into thinking standing up for myself, standing firm in what I wanted, creating boundaries – were wrong, misplaced. A comment meant to gaslight.  

What was I experiencing? Yes, anger. Justified anger. Anger that needed a voice to express itself. Anger to run out the door. Anger to leave that pattern of men who I begged to love me in tender, thoughtful ways, in spite of their emotional outbursts. Anger that allowed me to stand my ground, know that this type of love was not okay, it was malnourishing. Anger to leave.

After the night I left his apartment, he arrived unannounced to my home, banging on the door. I still have your extra car key, he spit through the keyhole. It would be a shame if something happened to your vehicle. All ten toes on the ground, I told him to leave. Repeatedly. In time, he did. I called my friend, a social worker, as reliable and steady as they come: a woman with good resources, a bright smile, and a no-bullshit attitude when needed. She went to his apartment, picked up my things, and told him, in her own way, to fuck off. 

I went out that evening to a nearby lake and ran. I ran until the tears finally flowed, until something dislodged in my throat. Craning my neck toward the sky, I let out a rasping growl of a groan, as if gargling gravel. I ran past the weeping willows that kissed the edge of the water and wished to live in their trunk like a woodland critter. I ran through the honking geese and shallow puddles; I ran on sidewalks and down the middle of the street, through unevenly mowed fields and by playgrounds, chaotic. My chest heaved and I swallowed as much oxygen as I could muster, sputtering as I went.

I was never going to be in such an unstable, awful relationship ever again, I thought. I had the people I needed in my life, the direction I wanted to go in, and no man was going to disrupt that flow for me -- not ever again. I would see to it.

Right?

I had a hard time believing myself.

My body trembled, a strange mix of living in raw power and moving on the cusp of collapse.  

I ran, alone. I listened to my feet slap the pavement. I watched the sun slip into the cool sheets of the horizon and the moon cradle her way into the charcoal sky. The miles melted into a number I have long forgotten. But my legs, my heart, my lungs: they all remember what running has done for me.

Running lets me go home to my body.

Running feels like a safety net in a world of uncertainty.

Running is how I remind my body that she is in charge.

She is always in charge.

That night I knew I was coming into my power -- but, I was still an embryo, not yet fully formed. However, I knew: I was going to rise from the shards of a broken pattern and learn what love really meant to me, what safe, stable, good love truly felt like. And running was going to help me do it.

This is part of an ongoing series called, Finding Leadville. This story tracks the journey of Barbara Powell as she discovers, trains for, and runs the Leadville 100 in 2023. It chronicles her experience in healing from emotional trauma, navigating elements of the patriarchy, Catholicism, and forgiveness, and the simple power of choosing to keep moving forward.