Everything changed.

One month and two days ago, my world was turned upside down.

Every day, there's a thousand different thoughts that run through my head. They plague me in the most literal sense.

Things like:
How long did he plan this? At what point did he know he was going to do this? Did he think it was crazy or completely rational? Why didn't he think about what it would do to Brittany and I? Why wasn't I worth a simple apology? How could he have written me off so easily? And my kids? Did I ever really know him? How does someone you've known your whole life turn into a complete stranger overnight? Does he still hate me? Is he still angry at me? What if he had succeeded? Where would I be in my life if he had? What would I have to be contending with right now? What if my mom hadn't outwitted him? What if he had used a gun? (They both would've been gone then.) What are his days like now? Does he sleep at night? Is he comfortable? Or safe? Will he die in jail? Will we ever talk to him again? Is he remorseful? Does he wish he had not done this?

And those are just the thoughts I dare share. I have so many deeper, darker thoughts too that rattle me to my core.

What happened on February 15th was big.

So big, in fact, that it doesn't feel real. It feels like my life is a television drama and that I have a front row seat.

Someone made a comment to me last week that my life will forever be lived in terms of "before" and "after".

Before this attack, my family was much like any other. Obviously we had our own share of issues and our own demons. But growing up within the environment that I did, with a dad who was often angry and a mom that was often trying to make it better, was normal to me. I knew it wasn't normal to everyone else but it was to me. I never really considered my dad as an "emotionally abusive" man, just one that had grown up in a physically abusive household and had a lot of anger and control issues as a result. (Hello, denial.) My relationship with him was always tenuous while living at home... he and I are alike in many ways so we naturally butted heads a lot. When compared to my mom and my sister, I'm the more outspoken one so I didn't put up with much of his crap and when he was being an ass, I told him. (As you can imagine, he didn't receive that well.)

The day I got married, that changed. The day Liana was born, it changed even more.

Liana was his life in the most obvious of ways. She idolized her papa and he basked in that. He gave her everything she wanted and more, so the cycle would continue and she then idolized him even more. When I quit weekend option and went to a M-F schedule, he watched her while I worked. Those days were what he lived for... again, in the most obvious of ways because the rest of his days were spent sitting in the same chair, watching television and being bored and resentful.

Liana changed the way he responded to me because he was always scared that I would keep her from him if  he hurt me. Unfortunately though this had little effect on the way he responded to Brittany and my mom. The emotional abuse continued. And even though he wouldn't take his anger out on me anymore, that never stopped him from taking his anger towards me out on one of them.

For 29 years and 8 months of my life, this family has walked on eggshells around him, never knowing what we might say or do to set him off.

After this attack, nothing feels the same. My mom is different and while I know in my heart that she won't be like this forever, she's not the same person that I lived with the past 29 years and 8 months. She's scared. Overwhelmed. Dependent. She's been reduced to a shell of the woman who has always been so strong and steadfast in my life.

My dad is in jail and facing a lifetime prison sentence. Other than in court and on the news, I anticipate that I will never see him alive and in person again. I often find myself desperately wanting to talk to him but I know that no good could come from that because even though he did this to us, I'm fairly certain that he's the one harboring feelings of hatefulness while sitting behind bars. In one day and by one action followed by many, many more that night, my dad was ripped from my life. While things weren't good before this, there was always room for hope. My hope to have a relationship with my dad died that night... along with a lot of other things.

My sister and I are surviving. We feel so many different emotions and often, more than one within the same moment. Sadness. Anger. Confusion. Joy. Fear. Gratefulness. Devastation. We've been left to pick up the pieces of what my dad did and while happy to do so considering the alternative, it's an overwhelming task much of the time.

I realized this week just how deep my denial runs. Disbelief is one of my biggest thought processes... Is this really happening? Did this really happen?

It just doesn't feel real.

Even when I have a "Major Case Squad" detective programmed into my contacts, along with a Kent County Prosecutor. Even when we get a letter from a lawyer or a phone call from the social worker at the jail. Even when I see either of my parents pictures splashed across the television screen or newspaper page. Even when I sit across the room and look at my mom and the scars and bandages she now wears. Even when I go to the Rockford house to check on things and pick up the mail.

My denial does run deep and while I know it can be a dangerous coping mechanism, it also saves me. When I need to put one foot in front of the other, it helps me do that.

I've noticed that my work days seem to be my hardest days. I think this is because when I'm at home with the kids, I can't cry. Not because I don't want to but because I don't have time to. Liana and Lukas are just too young to understand that "mommy just needs a minute" (or an hour, or lets be real here, a week). By the time they go to bed at night I'm so emotionally spent that I have nothing left to give to myself. However when I'm working, I'm often alone in my thoughts and alone in my car. It's in those moments that the reality of this situation truly hits me.

There are no words to express how thankful I am that my dad did not succeed at what he was trying to do that night. There are no words to express how thankful I am that my mother is asleep in the room next to me.

There aren't enough words to explain all the ways in which this has effected me and our family.

But my life will forever be defined in the terms of "before" and "after". Because everything in my life changed in just a few short hours on that fateful February night.