Life Challenges: What Led Me Here (Part III)

The internet can be a dangerous place. It can also be a great place for resources, news and entertainment. I found all these things and more from my initial chatting experiences.

I was very careful about my identity online. Having heard all of these stories about how terrible things happen to people online; things like child predators, serial killers and just general bad people, I was very, very cautious. Taking great strides to protect my identity, I entered the chat world with a nickname and never used my full name. It took me 6 months before I would even share a picture of myself.

The irony of my tale is that I would later have to go “undercover” online and change my identity because I was being stalked online. The stalking endured for a period of a year, involving police intervention in three different states. There were times when I was genuinely quite scared from it and it weakened the trust I had in people.

Suffice it to say that my story is quite unbelievable, even to the people who were involved in it, including myself! With all the elements of a romance drama from a Lifetime movie, the controversy of a Spike Lee film, the melodrama and passion of a Pedro Almodovar film and the secrecy of an Agatha Christie detective novel, all wrapped up in one story, I have many ways of presenting my story to the world. Although I would like to explore all of that story here, there are various reasons why I have decided to make it part of my book instead.

I will say that my state of being during the ordeal was very stressed, drained, and put me on my guard during the enduring months of what seemed like a never-ending nightmare. Looking back on it all, I sometimes feel amazed that I made it through that time without a nervous breakdown of sorts. I wasn’t relying on my faith, or even my belief in God, but rather living and re-living each moment of worry, fear and pain, over and over and over again, determined to get to the bottom of the online stalking ordeal, yet fearful that I was in danger at times. It was a strange mix of fear, but curiosity at the same time. My spirit was very wounded and I felt like I could trust no one, yet opened up at times felt at times with my husband and with my online friends.

I ended up taking a risk and trusting two people who I had gotten to know online who later became and still are very good friends: one woman and one man. During this time, I was interviewing for jobs locally, but always managing to come in second. I was in despair as the bills were piling up, creditors were increasingly calling the house and I wanted my children to continue with the same activities that they had previously enjoyed, not to mention keeping the house and putting food on the table!

After many months of job searching locally, I knew that if I searched for a job in my field nationally, I would find a job. At the suggestion of one of my online friends, I decided to apply for what looked like a very promising and ideal position in New York, having never ever considered living there previously. In fact, my husband would often suggest over the years that we move to New York City (having been raised in a city himself), but I would always frown upon the idea. I thought New York would not be safe for my kids, so I never pursued it. I realize now that I was conjuring up images of the New York City of the 1970’s when crime was higher and the conditions different.

Even with these reservations, I decided to give the job a chance and I had a phone interview shortly after that. Immediately after the phone interview, I was invited to come to New York as a finalist. I could feel that I was a top candidate, but wasn’t sure about making that drastic of a move.

Just days before my interview, I had put some clothes in the clothes dryer and was going to leave with my kids to visit my parents, who lived close by a few blocks away. My husband was out of the country at the time and I tried to take my kids there as much as possible, so they could enjoy the last days of their grandfather. Not knowing if we would soon be moving away made the urgency of time with them even more important.

A voice inside of me said, “Don’t leave the house with the dryer still running.” I knew that voice as I had heard it over and over again in the course of my adult years. It was the voice of my mother, giving me what I now know is very good, sound advice. I never listened to it, however, as I was always combative with her about many issues because I didn’t like being told what to do, especially as an adult. I cannot count the times when I would throw some clothes in that same dryer and run up to see my parents with the kids, without a second thought. But this evening was different. For the first time, I really heard her and turned off the dryer while we made the short visit to my parent’s home.

When I returned to the house, I let our dog out of his kennel (which was in the same room as the laundry room) and I turned on the dryer, while my kids were playing upstairs in their rooms. I went back upstairs and was about to fix dinner when I smelled smoke a few minutes later. I rushed down the stairs to see flames starting to come out through the dryer door. In a panic, I yelled up at the girls to get their boots on and coats on, while I tried getting the fire extinguisher to put out the fire.

I saw within the next minute that my efforts would not be fast enough, as the fire had enveloped the machine and the smoke was starting to really smother the laundry room. I yelled at our dog to come with me, ran up the stairs to get my kids, picked up the phone and called 911, then burst out the door, kids and dog in tow. We went over to a neighbor’s house for warmth while we waited for the fire truck to arrive. I was so nervous that I went outside in the bitter cold with my neighbor, who happened to be a police detective, to wait for the fire truck.

The waiting seemed to last forever. The cold cut through my coat and into my bones as I watched my house in fear, not knowing if the flames would soon engulf the entire house. I couldn’t help but think about how our dog and house would be totally gone, had I not listened to that voice to turn off that dryer...

Little did I know at the time that the waiting was only a small sample of the patience I would have to learn in the years ahead and the fire represented only the beginning of the turmoil I was about to confront as I left for the job interview in a few days...

To Be Continued in Part IV....