Don't Hate Yourself for Suffering; Love Yourself for Trying

I know the smell of alcohol on an angry man’s breath. And from time to time, I catch the same scent in random places- on the bus as a college boy gets on, at the grocery store as a woman with a haggard and careworn face pushes her cart along…downwind from a genderless, ageless figure as I walk.


Alcoholics are everywhere. And so are those who find no peace with their skin. So are all sufferers. Everywhere. Invisible for the most part.



I know the fear that grips your entire being when a stranger wearing the body of a loved one grabs you, pins you, shoves you, pushes your boundaries. And later doesn’t remember. And cries. Just as I push my own boundaries when a stranger wears my body.


We are sufferers. In many forms. Everywhere.


And still I’m standing, no worse for the wear, really. And still I love him. Because I am a fool. Because I’m brave, and hopeful, and I bounce back. Because no bottle holds a potion powerful enough to take away my courage and no bottle will ever blind me to the good heart that beats within the sufferer’s body. Because I’m a sufferer too. Of a different sort, but a sufferer just the same.



I love openly and shamelessly a man I’m told I deserve more than, and am told deserves less than me. Because I see parts of myself within him- struggle, effort, fighting, bravery. Because I see things in him that I wish were a part of me- clear skin, strong, set boundaries, ambition. And because he has filled a void I didn't think he would, and taught me things despite the lessons coming hard and coming mostly because of hard drinks.



Watching him suffer and trying to figure out how to help him heal has helped me figure out how I can heal as well.




Don’t hate someone for suffering; Love them for trying.

But more importantly:

Don’t hate yourself for suffering; love yourself for trying.


And we will all heal.