Future Faking

“Future Faking” was a gut punch that didn’t land until the summer of 2024. It’s a particularly cruel tactic, and over time it begins to feel like being whipped with an emotional cat o’ nine tails that lands like a warm embrace and rips away like shards of glass through the flesh.

Aveon was perhaps the most formal of the fakes (if you don’t count the marriage or the wedding - just bits of paperwork and pomp, right?), with a logo and a website and a google business account and a trip to AHR and an almost LLC and countless starry eyed conversations with my cosmo-not partner about my cosmo-not gonna happen dream.

I don’t know what the opposite of future faking is, but this tactic is antithetical to me. I’ve never liked the phrase “fake it ‘til you make it”, and after X, I never will - even if it’s well meant.

I prefer “manifest it ‘til you make it” or “build it and they will come”. It’s amazing how much progress you can make toward a dream via mindset alone.

My original vision for Aveon Air will never come to fruition, and thank goodness and badness and all the neutral that lies between.

The god of the jail cell ceiling didn’t directly give me the gift of reclaiming Aveon, but it began to form in my mind soon after - before I could write my phone number correctly; before I was harassed and stalked by my abuser and muzzled by so many who could have provided safety - but after my abuser, the monster in HVAC technician’s clothing who cruelly called me a pussy for not being tougher on jobs, who belittled my ability to pass the EPA608 Universal as mere luck, who has left a stain on the industry that won’t scrub off for generations, put his hands around my throat and strangled me.

Repeatedly. Violently.

His teeth were gritted with the effort.

His 200 pounds hulking over me, knee on my chest; my stomach.

Seven instances that I can recall. I’ll never know if there were more. I cradled my tender, aching neck and cried for 24 hours on the floor of a jail cell, as the god of the ceiling looked on.

I was leaning against a KUV when I told the officers I was having trouble breathing. That I couldn’t think clearly. That it felt like my brain couldn’t get enough oxygen. When I asked them for water. When I told them I felt like I was going to pass out.

They brought me water but never let me touch the cup to my lips. It sat on the bumper as they drew out handcuffs and arrested me for surviving.

The only hope of help I had in that moment should have been in their hands. The irony that it might have been inside of the very vehicle that witnessed the predator go free has yet to fade. It might have been inches away from my shaking hands, as I, the prey (and mother of the prey) was detained and forced to suffer through a life threatening medical emergency all alone.

Near infrared photography saves lives.

It would have seen my monster captured that day (but I’m so glad it didn’t, as I will explain in time), it would have seen two weeks of healing and peace instead of a slow motion night-marathon of horror and terror and loss, and it would have seen several officers alerted to the very real danger that lay before them.

Instead, it was never mentioned, offered, or explained - not in my front yard, not in the detention center, not in the first ER, not in the second ER, not in the victims advocate office, and not in the county attorney’s office.

I was called a criminal, in the midst of criminal medical neglect, criminal miscarriage of justice, and criminal prevention of proof.

My experience led me to make a promise, a pact, a powerful commitment:

I want to Be The Last.

The last strangulation victim my cosmo-not abuser EVER has, and the last victim of domestic violence and strangulation who will be forced to pay the survival tax.

Aveon Air is committed to placing a near infrared photography device in every first responder vehicle, every detention center, and every emergency room across the world, and working with law enforcement, elected officials, medical professionals, and DV advocates to implement policies and procedures that increase awareness of the danger of strangulation for all, require timely and adequate photographic documentation for emergency DV calls, and support anyone healing from the psychological trauma and physical injury of this deadly type of attack.

Aveon Air is also committed to the HVAC industry through supporting recruitment and retention in the skilled trades, educating homeowners about safety and quality, championing innovation and improvement through research and technological advances, and to fostering a volunteer-supported resource in every community to obtain timely near infrared photography in a safe and dignified manner.

My attack leaves me at risk of subsequent death for months, but I plan to survive, to thrive, and to revive the infrastructure of my faked future.

I plan to attend AHR in Orlando, with the goal of reaching every single attendee and inviting them to take the Aveon Pledge and help me Be The Last.

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Cosmo-Not: “If you're going to move into someone's house and eat their children, it pays to be discrete. Predators that live in ant colonies, called myrmecophiles, get away with this because they smell, look, and behave just like ants. A new study shows how an Australian spider has reached new levels in this con game. Cosmophasis bitaeniata doesn't just smell like ant--it smells like home.”

Cosmo. Why?

My cat is named Carl Sagan.

It mimicked decency and curiosity and scholarship…not very well; it was obvious my abuser was trying really hard. Too hard. But I thought of it as just a bit pathetic, not vile and wretched and evil.

A cosmo. Not a partner.

My cosmo-not not-love story.

But my thoughts aren’t with the darkness and the lies. Today, I’m looking ahead and leaning into the light - being the light - and am so fucking grateful for words.

They’re spilling out of me in lieu of the blood that strangulation does not spill in the moment.

I didn’t know if they’d come back.

I was stuttering, stunted…but truth and freedom and choosing justice rather than waiting to receive it - somehow they have acted as a salve to my psyche. A poultice to my pummeled body.

Cut me open. I’m still wick.

And you’re wicked.