Forced Perspective @myforcedperspective - Tumblr Blog

“You stopped caring so I cared more. And perhaps this was my greatest mistake. To care for someone who didn’t even spend one single thought on me.Your carelessness wrecked me.”

—

Your carelessness wrecked me.

@lustforunspokenwords

gartillustration

“La solitudine di chi è incompreso”

https://instagram.com/p/Bp9eIarHuOT/

thatadhdfeel

That adhd feel when you realize you forgot to take your meds while you’re driving because HOLY FUCK I WASNT PAYING ANY ATTENTION TO THE ROAD

Adrift

When I was about three, I fell off a raft. We were in the gulf of Mexico, just across the street from my grandfather's house. He was standing, with my dad, pulling the raft into the ocean. I was in the raft. The memory has no words, probably because I didn't know many. A big wave hit the raft, and it swept me off. I remember seeing the sun from underwater. The salt water burned my eyes, almost as much as holding my breath burned my lungs. I felt weightless, reaching for a sky that was somehow out of reach, even though I could see it right there.

After what felt like forever, my dad grabbed me and pulled me up. I coughed and hacked and sobbed. Dad patted my back and held me and told me I'd was okay. He had me.

*****

Yesterday something happened to grandma. She slumped over, eyes glassy, limp and unresponsive. She came to after a minute, but my mom was shattered. We took her to the ER. They don't know what's wrong but they know she's not going to last much longer.

We need to move out. Our 8-year-old can't be around this. But Myranda doesn't want me to come with them. She wants this, now, to be our separation.

I quit my job at the station Thursday. I'm suppose to have something lined up, but I'm nervous. It's new and nothing is guaranteed. I've been here before.

I can see the sky. But I can't touch it

littlestpersimmon

with me

fagderolo

anyone else?

7 Years

It's our anniversary today. The math is a little fuzzy. We shifted the original a few days because our venue wasn't available then. But really, at seven years, what's a few days?

Plenty.

Day One - I ask you to marry me. I do it with Layla, a photographer, dolphins (real ones) and my family. You cry, I forget to put the ring on before I kiss you. We eat dinner in a spinning restaurant on top of my city.

Day Two - we are in St. Charles the first time. We made love in the hotel. Then we ride bikes through a cemetery, along the Fox River. We hold hands beneath the bench. We walk around Chicago until your bus arrives. We see "the bean." I play "the luckiest" in the car before you go.

Day Three - we get a beautiful hotel in Stillwater. We ride a tandem bike for the first time. It's hard! You take me out for a lovely dinner. Then with the city lit up along the river, your hands shaking, you propose back to me.

Day Four - We are in Mexico. A couple of days ago we were married in the most beautiful wedding. Everyone we love is there. Now we are riding ATVs up a mountain. We stop at that perfect little paradise, by the stream with the waterfalls. We're going to zipline and soar. But for now our toes are in the water as children laugh and dragonflies, shining like gems, flit around.

Day Five - I am rubbing my eyes and you tell me you have a surprise. I come out, bleary, and you hand me a bag. Inside are baby clothes. And a positive pregnancy test. I'm going to have everything I ever wanted.

Day Six - He's here. You're exhausted and so am I but there's no comparison. He is a tiny, wrinkly old pirate, watching the world with one eye. His eyes are just like yours. I hold him while you both sleep and I cry because I'm so happy.

Day Seven - Today. I'm in a car with the kids, heading the opposite way. You're in Minnesota, still waking up. I've been up for days, it feels like. I don't know what tomorrow holds. But I'm glad I've had these years with you. My life is infinitely richer and fuller for that. I can never thank you enough.

Happy anniversary.

#marriage #memory #love #relationships #husband #wife #separation #divorce #Together #apart

gretchen-anner

conditions of love: the philosophy of intimacy

Separated

Sometimes things don’t work out. You try hard. You give it your all. And still you’re going to fail. They don’t make movies out of those stories. They don’t write books about them. It’s the sad truth lurking in the shadows of our collective culture. And it sucks.

My wife and I are separating. This isn’t working, the way we’ve been doing things. She can’t stand living with my parents and grandma, it’s stressing her out. And I can’t stand that she’s so miserable she can’t take care of herself or get anything done. So. Separation.

Not a legal one mind you. We aren’t getting separate phone lines and bank accounts. I’m still paying for almost everything. The schedule for the kids won’t change much, except they’ll be sleeping somewhere else most of the week. It’s not a huge change.

It’s devastating.

When we talked about it, we both admitted that no matter what we do, it’s never enough for the other person. That we still love one another. I cried a lot, the way I do. She didn’t, the way she does.

“I don’t know how to wrap this up,” I said, wiping my nose.

“Just go,” she said.

And so I did. I drove more than an hour. And then for the first time in 6 years, I got fucking drunk. 6 years of sobriety down the drain. And I got high on top of it. And I listened to sad songs, and I sobbed, and smoked cigarettes. And I thought it was all too much, this life.

But I didn’t think about ending it.

I tried to sleep, I really did, on my friend’s bed. But I had nightmares. An endless loop, where my limbs wouldn’t work. Sometimes I tried to crawl away from her, as she walked towards me. Most of the time, I tried to crawl towards her as she walked away. When I woke up, my limbs were still asleep, so I sat there trying to keep my eyes open until I could move again. I’d been asleep maybe an hour.

So I went out on my friends deck and smoked while I listened to the rain. It’s been raining for two days now. No thunder and lightning. Just the steady beat of rain drops on the windows, the roof of the car, the leaves of the trees. It’s going to keep raining, the meteorologist says.

Then I drove home. She was already gone to work. I tried not to think about her as I fell asleep.

Sometimes things just don’t work out.

#relationships #relationship #marriage #separation #divorce #wife #husband #sobriety #relapse #substance abuse #heartbreak #depression #drama #loss #failure #drinking #alcohol #father

oaluz

DBT strengthening statements

There Is A Way Out

50 days ago, I tried to kill myself. I haven’t written very much since then. That’s not because things have been easy, or because I haven’t learned much. It’s because I don’t know how to put some of these things into words. I’ve had life shaking revelations, and accomplishments, but when I try to put them into words, they seem to shrink away.

Are they the same as climbing Everest? Finding the vaccine to Polio? No. But this isn’t the story of the earth, or medicine. This is my story. This is my life. And so yeah, these are pretty big deals. If you looked at what I wrote a year ago, about what I was dealing with. These changes would shock you. So even if they seem small in the cosmic sense, they matter.

I learned to forgive. For 32 years, I didn’t know how. Didn’t really know what the word meant. But this week I forgave. I don’t just mean that I told someone “I forgive you.” I mean I let go of it. I acknowledged that they couldn’t change what happened, no matter how much they tried. No matter how upset I got.

I learned to accept. I have been so angry about the past. At the people who did things, and the people who didn’t. At myself for allowing this to be reality. At the universe for allowing certain things to happen the way they did. But all the anger in the world won’t change any of that. This is my form of radical acceptance: the past is done.

From that, I learned to move past. I learned to put down that hurt and walk away. To leave 32-years-worth of baggage behind me. I can’t tell you how heavy that burden was. Or how relieved I felt when I put it down. My back is still bent, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get it completely straight. But I can begin that process now.

It starts with loving myself. I have done the best I could. And I’m doing the best I can. Everything I’ve done, the mistakes and the successes, came from doing what I thought was best. I can improve my judgement, I can learn new skills, I can see things with fresh perspective. But I don’t need to change the core of myself, because I am not a bad person. I am a loving husband and father. I am a good writer, a good cook. The normal expression is “redeeming qualities," but I don’t need to be redeemed. At least not in that sense. I deserve to be loved. I deserve to succeed. I deserve to heal. I deserve to be happy.

These things may seem trite – I know if a friend said them to me a year ago I would have nodded along like “duh.” But accepting these things, letting them sink into me, has helped. I had to tear open my old wounds for these truths to get to them. We are built through time. We process things when they happen. Sometimes we draw the wrong conclusions, because we didn’t have all the information.

So 26-year-old me, I say this: you can forgive.

To 16-year-old me: you can trust.

And to 10-year-old me: you are a good kid. You do deserve to be loved. And you are. You are loved. It’s not an illusion or a mistake. When they say they love you, they mean it. I’m so sorry you felt so broken and alone for so long. But there is a way out from there. And after so long, we have finally found it.