"Tedious & Brief", an open letter by Xondra

I wake up in a cold sweat for the fourth time this week. It is 4am and I am sitting up in bed, staring at nothing in particular. This time he lost control of the car completely and we spiraled out into a ditch. I crawled out the window and found him about 10 feet away from the car. He was crying and saying the same thing over and over again. I can’t hear it until I am close. “This is all your fault. Save me”, he says in between whimpers. I step forward to grab him then immediately feel it. The sinking feeling. It is too late for both of us now. We are in quicksand and there is nobody here to hear our cries. He isn’t looking for anyone else though. Until his very last breath , he is looking at me and repeating the words, “This is all your fault. Save me”. I don’t fight him on it. I’ve internalized it. It must be true. I am grasping at the ground until I can’t anymore. Right before my last breath, I wake gasping.

Anyone with C-PTSD knows this kind of thing all too well. Night terrors that wake you up. Night terrors that make you afraid to go to sleep. I have variations of dreams like the one above, always ending in death. Even worse are the ones where women that have been murdered ask me to help bring their murderers to justice. Worse yet are the ones where I am being chased by the murderer himself. These are the types of night terrors that led to me writing Tedious & Brief. It felt impossible to capture the heaviness I was feeling at the time but I think I finally got it right. I needed to look at the root of the problem. Why do women love people who hurt us? Why do we stay with people that scare us?

After a domestic violence incident in 2019, I became obsessed with incidents where the women weren’t so lucky. I think maybe I was suffering a bit from survivor’s guilt. How did I make it out alive while so many women aren’t here to tell their stories? Today I am grateful to be here. I know I am alive to make art that resonates with people who are clinging to peace like a life vest. I am here to document the healing process. There are so many people out there struggling and I am here to make music to make them feel less alone. Abuse of any kind can be so isolating. I know what it’s like to feel alone in a crowded room. I know what it’s like to feel silenced or like you speaking up is an inconvenience. I’ve been quiet about what I’ve been through for so long that it almost felt comfortable. Last year it all caught up to me though. It begged to be written about so that’s just what I did. I finally had a place to put this rage that I had been hiding away. This is me screaming myself back to life. It is my announcement to the world that I won’t be silenced, even if it makes people uncomfortable.

More than domestic abuse, Tedious & Brief is about the full picture of how abuse as a child can lead to abuse as an adult. I wanted to look at what happens when a child is not emotionally protected. What choices do they make when they are older? I wanted to take this opportunity to look at inner child healing because we all have something our younger selves need to hear. If there is anything that I think my inner child needs to hear, it’s that I can and will get through every obstacle and come out a better version of myself every time. I don’t think any of us are what has happened to us. We can take the bad and transform it to help us be stronger, happier, and kinder than ever before. At my core, I am a happy person. I struggle sometimes but healing is never linear and I have accepted that I will be this healing evolving person for the rest of my life. I am in it for the long haul and a few bad days will not stop me from continuously evolving into the person I want to be.

I am so proud to be making a Tedious & Brief film. It feels like a reclamation of power. My story is mine and I am able to tell it how I’d like to. I love visuals for music. I always have. I found a new passion in directing last year and I can’t wait to continue this journey of bringing my vision to life. We are doing a crowdfunding campaign to raise $5000 to make this film. We are striving to make a film that captures the story of survival and taking back your power. If we exceed our goal, we will be donating to The National Coalition Against Domestic violence. They are an organization doing incredible work to support legislation that empowers survivors, holds abusers accountable , and supports advocates. They hold an annual conference that helps connect and educate advocates and survivors. The conference has workshops that are survivor focused that touch on subjects such as Advocacy Skills, Anti Oppression and Racial Justice, Health and Domestic Violence, etc. Throughout the year, they also have Advocacy and Financial Education Webinars. My team and I would love and appreciate any contribution to this project that is so close to our hearts.