How did we get here?
Or maybe more specifically “How did I get here?”
If you had told me one year ago, as in exactly one year to the day on July 26th, 2015 that I would be nearly finished with getting a divorce AND Donald Trump was the Republican nominee for President, with a chance of actually winning, well I would have not believed it obviously. And if you someone gave me proof that it was true and I did believe you. Guess what I would have done on July 27, 2015?
Nothing. Because I would have killed myself before another day came. That is how depressing and horrible a scenario you just convinced me of.
Would not even have stuck around to see “The Force Awakens”.
Just skip straight to ashes to ashes & dust to dust. Food for worms.
And while my death, if it had happened a year ago today, would be tragic and heartbreaking for most of my friends and family. There’s also a chance it sets in motion something else. My wife gets a head-start on getting over me and moving on with her life a year early.
Maybe my cousin Natalie isn’t at that bar a few weeks later because she is checking in on my parents during their grief. So she doesn’t take a motorcycle ride with a random dude who didn’t have a helmet for her and had been drinking before he even showed up to the bar. So they don’t run into another asshole that was always drinking and driving in a car that runs a red light and plows into the Harley throwing Natalie off and killing her, while the other two men walk away with their lives and freedom.
Maybe this is all just self-indulgent and harmful bullshit I am filling my head with because I can’t deal with the shit I have to deal with and have no way in changing. They tell me that I can only control how I handle the situation, not the situation itself. Look on the bright side? Find a silver lining? When has that ever happened before?
Anything good ever come out of my brother and me being sexually abused by our own grandfather, along with a neighbor girl, for most of our early childhood? Where was the silver lining in the years of self-hate and chemical dependency that followed, only cut short for my brother when he killed himself at 19 years old.
I guess on the “bright side” I did spend the rest of my teens and early to mid 20s living it up doing terrible things to my body with drugs and alcohol, as well dangerous and shameful sexual promiscuity that I never even remotely felt good about or was true to myself. I self destructed so many times. Found myself at age 30 out of work, broke, living with my parents, and had never been in love much less found anyone that loved me.
When my other terrible grandfather passed away that same year I didn’t shed a tear. I actually resolved to change my life and fight for my own happiness. I found a job. I found some hope. I started to forging ahead. I met a girl. I feel in love with that girl. I was happy. Didn’t think it was fairy tale, but it was pretty great. It was real. It was everything I had been waiting my whole life for.
Her love wasn’t my only source of strength but it was a great influence. I was inspired and amazed by her devotion, her bravery, and her intelligence. There were struggles along the way, like with anything, but a wedding came and was wonderful. A new life started together.
I’ve not been able to pinpoint when things went bad for her, but at no point did I ever take any of it for granted. I fought for us. I tore down every defensive wall I had built in the prior three decades. There was nothing so bad that could change how I felt about her, about us. I gave and gave and gave. I listened. To her. To our therapist. To her friends and family. To my friends and family. I quit my job, with her support, and at her insistence because I was struggling so much with it. I was looking forward, open and hopeful. Then she destroyed it all, very shortly after. Told me she didn’t want to try anymore. Wanted it over. Wanted me gone.
Initially I trusted that she was right even though I couldn’t understand it or agree with it. I fell back into old habits of compartmentalizing my own pain and fear in order to make sure she got want she wanted and was taken care of.
I stand firm in my belief that it was not her love (or our love) that saved me 3 ½ years ago, but rather it was my own decision that I was worth being saved and worth being loved that allowed me to find and keep a love like ours. And so now as I live without her or her love I have to realize that I am only destroyed by my own willingness to let myself be destroyed by it. Her rejection can not ruin me, it can only hurt me. And right now it hurts so much that I wish I was ruined.
I don’t want to feel good again, because I don’t want to feel this bad again.
If you had told me one year ago, as in exactly one year to the day on July 26th, 2015 that I would be nearly finished with getting a divorce AND Donald Trump was the Republican nominee for President, with a chance of actually winning, well I would have not believed it obviously. And if you someone gave me proof that it was true and I did believe you. Guess what I would have done on July 27, 2015?
Nothing. Because I would have killed myself before another day came. That is how depressing and horrible a scenario you just convinced me of.
Would not even have stuck around to see “The Force Awakens”.
Just skip straight to ashes to ashes & dust to dust. Food for worms.
And while my death, if it had happened a year ago today, would be tragic and heartbreaking for most of my friends and family. There’s also a chance it sets in motion something else. My wife gets a head-start on getting over me and moving on with her life a year early.
Maybe my cousin Natalie isn’t at that bar a few weeks later because she is checking in on my parents during their grief. So she doesn’t take a motorcycle ride with a random dude who didn’t have a helmet for her and had been drinking before he even showed up to the bar. So they don’t run into another asshole that was always drinking and driving in a car that runs a red light and plows into the Harley throwing Natalie off and killing her, while the other two men walk away with their lives and freedom.
Maybe this is all just self-indulgent and harmful bullshit I am filling my head with because I can’t deal with the shit I have to deal with and have no way in changing. They tell me that I can only control how I handle the situation, not the situation itself. Look on the bright side? Find a silver lining? When has that ever happened before?
Anything good ever come out of my brother and me being sexually abused by our own grandfather, along with a neighbor girl, for most of our early childhood? Where was the silver lining in the years of self-hate and chemical dependency that followed, only cut short for my brother when he killed himself at 19 years old.
I guess on the “bright side” I did spend the rest of my teens and early to mid 20s living it up doing terrible things to my body with drugs and alcohol, as well dangerous and shameful sexual promiscuity that I never even remotely felt good about or was true to myself. I self destructed so many times. Found myself at age 30 out of work, broke, living with my parents, and had never been in love much less found anyone that loved me.
When my other terrible grandfather passed away that same year I didn’t shed a tear. I actually resolved to change my life and fight for my own happiness. I found a job. I found some hope. I started to forging ahead. I met a girl. I feel in love with that girl. I was happy. Didn’t think it was fairy tale, but it was pretty great. It was real. It was everything I had been waiting my whole life for.
Her love wasn’t my only source of strength but it was a great influence. I was inspired and amazed by her devotion, her bravery, and her intelligence. There were struggles along the way, like with anything, but a wedding came and was wonderful. A new life started together.
I’ve not been able to pinpoint when things went bad for her, but at no point did I ever take any of it for granted. I fought for us. I tore down every defensive wall I had built in the prior three decades. There was nothing so bad that could change how I felt about her, about us. I gave and gave and gave. I listened. To her. To our therapist. To her friends and family. To my friends and family. I quit my job, with her support, and at her insistence because I was struggling so much with it. I was looking forward, open and hopeful. Then she destroyed it all, very shortly after. Told me she didn’t want to try anymore. Wanted it over. Wanted me gone.
Initially I trusted that she was right even though I couldn’t understand it or agree with it. I fell back into old habits of compartmentalizing my own pain and fear in order to make sure she got want she wanted and was taken care of.
I stand firm in my belief that it was not her love (or our love) that saved me 3 ½ years ago, but rather it was my own decision that I was worth being saved and worth being loved that allowed me to find and keep a love like ours. And so now as I live without her or her love I have to realize that I am only destroyed by my own willingness to let myself be destroyed by it. Her rejection can not ruin me, it can only hurt me. And right now it hurts so much that I wish I was ruined.
I don’t want to feel good again, because I don’t want to feel this bad again.
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