Today I wore my stomping boots to court.

This morning I did not want to wake up. Like, at all. It was the day my daughter and I fight to make our temporary restraining orders against my abusive ex permanent.

This meant that last night, after she dressed in full hair and makeup for her opera rehearsal, (it’s tech week, iykyk) she drove alone from Boulder down to the Springs. She got here a little after midnight.

She still had the pincurls in her hair from under her wig and was in full Hansel and Gretel makeup. We hugged, took a few deep breaths, and put everything out of our minds so we could wake up to meet our lawyer before the 9:30am court hearing.

So this morning, we all woke up, forgot to eat breakfast and walked to the courthouse.

The one saving grace in all of this is that we can walk to the courthouse from the loft. At least for now. When it starts to snow and such, we will be driving again. That will suck.

My lawyer offered him a year long contingency if he would just not fight us. Not make my teenage daughter have to speak up in open court about what a terrible man he was.

He said no. That the restraining orders were unfounded and that he was going to fight them.

And that’s how I know it’s always been about control. And never about love. Because anyone who has ever truly loved another person would never ever make them sit even one second on a stand in a courtroom under oath.

What a terrible thing to have to do. What a terrible feeling to sit up there in that little fishbowl with everyone in the room staring at you, judging your face and your hair, and who knows what else.

It’s awful.

And so we fought. We talked about the traumatic events of our lives and the way they unfolded over the last ten years. Our lawyer submitted photos of text messages, broken doors and bruises, all while we sat in a room that looked a little like a movie set.

It was surreal.

The court adjourned for recess right before they came back to make the final decisions.

That was actually a part of my day. When a stranger went into a back room, listened to audio of a man strangling me, looked at close up photos and evidence of the things he’d done, and then came out and decided if my daughter and I got to be safe tonight, and for the rest of our lives, or not.

Do you know what an eternity feels like?

That. It’s that.

So, my daughter and I sat hand in hand. My hands were so sweaty. She was so cool and collected. I was so proud of her for that.

My cousin sat a few rows back. She’s the one that helped us put our evidence together.

It isn’t lost on me that I carried my evidence to court in a Kate Spade bag that had a winking camel on it, with a laptop inside that read, “pussy parade” in script across the back of it. (Don’t worry, we covered it with an jellyfish sticker before we got there.) Sometimes, she really knows how to empower me in a way that nobody else does.

He walked back in, the magistrate or judge (I am a little confused on the difference), and we all rose. That’s actually a thing, by the way— you rise when a judge enters and leaves a room. Who knew? Probably everyone. I’m so naive sometimes.

I grabbed my daughter’s hand again. I don’t know if it was for her or me. I still feel a little guilty about that. I’m supposed to be the mom here. I’m the comfort-er, not the comfort-ee. And tried not to throw up.

The judge then walked through the case, lying out the events that led up to the restraining orders step-by-step, and man oh man that just sucked a whole lot, and then he granted my permanent restraining order.

I don’t know if you’ve ever felt both intense relief and sheer fear and compete terror at exactly the same time, but the very brief time between in which he granted my restraining order and then granted my daughter’s, I’m pretty sure I left my body completely, because I think that is the only way I didn’t burst into a billion pieces of glass right there in the room. (To be fair, the judge didn’t drag anything out in any way, he was very fair, just, and professional, even when Kevin got attitude with him, he kept his cool.)

But he did. He granted them both. And they’re permanent. Because what my ex did wasn’t okay.

It was never okay.