I Bought You Enchroma Glasses, But You Never Wear Them
Originally posted on January 26, 2023
I Bought You Enchroma Glasses, But You Never Wear Them
I love you so much more than I love myself
I think it's time I start to learn how,
so the thought of you doesn't hurt my heart
and the thought of a life without you by my side
doesn't make my body go numb.
There comes a time where you'll have to choose
which path to take; what choice to make.
We just picked out our wedding colors, but
what color is a heart when it's breaking?
What color is a love that feels so sad?
What color is the life we were building together?
I had forgotten, my love;
you are colorblind.(January 26, 2023) What I want, more than anything, is to be secure in the love I give and receive. No one is perfect, I am far from it. We are all human. We make mistakes.
Sometimes mistakes cost more than you realized they would. I have made mistakes and paid dearly for them. If you make a mistake, I will forgive you and I will love you and I will support you through the hardest of times. I will not judge, lest I myself be judged. I accept.
If there is love on both sides, effort should follow. We take the steps towards each other to find the balance between us, and even if it doesn’t look like a straight line, if you walk towards me, I will be there. 🌸
I remember this all too well— this poem, this post. Prolonged heartbreak is torture, self-inflicted or otherwise. I wrote this during a time in my life when I felt truly lost, on the heels of an official Bipolar I Manic Predominant diagnosis and struggling through a broken, seemingly one-sided relationship.
My ex and I have a very chaotic history, and even now, an unpredictable relationship. While we’re no longer together and haven’t been for at least a year and a half, we were very much engaged when I had written this. Back then, I had only just grazed the surface when it came to understanding the depths of the addiction that had grasped him so tightly when I wasn’t looking. In hindsight, the way that he treated our relationship makes so much more sense now, but back then I was just confused, scared, lonely, and heartbroken. He had made it clear that he didn’t care about me and vehemently disliked being with me; my existence was a source of frustration for him.
I hadn’t realized how slippery of a slope it was; drug addiction, that is. I don’t wish it on anyone. It makes you forget what is really important, and while I wasn’t the one with the substance issue, I did everything in my power to make him happy and make things work. I can’t speak to how addiction directly impacts one from a firsthand experience, but I can speak to what it’s like to love someone struggling with addiction. Some issues cannot be fixed through one’s own actions, and some issues are impossible to address if one only party is willing to work things out.
I wrote this when my heart felt like it had been dropped in the mud. It’s been almost two years and we are both completely different people. He moved out when our romantic relationship ended a year and a half ago. After a year of living separately, he moved back in to help with the bills when I was part of a massive layoff within my company. He has been sober for a long time (almost a year? at least a year? just about a year?), and I am really proud of him for that. While we co-parent well, I know the idea of us reconciling is just that— an idea, and not a very good one, at that. Such is life.
For context, I bought several pairs of enchroma glasses for him over the years. Outside of the initial novelty of being able to see color that didn’t exist in his world, he stopped using them. I think they’re broken, but that’s okay. I don’t have it in me to buy them again, even if I did have the funds. He can get them himself, if he really wants them.