The Way it Should Be. Live Your Own Life.

badwolfonbakerstreet:

jokerchenisdifferent:

oneandonlygabriel:

I really, REALLY wish you could read this article about a father who started wearing skirts because his son likes to wear skirts and dresses and he wants his son to feel stronger
Like, holy shit, the end made me feel so happy 

This is so beautiful I’m sorry for everyone who can’t speak German and can’t read this right now. 

I translated the article. Please excuse any mistakes, it was done in quite a hurry.

My 5-year old boy likes to wear dresses. In Berlin Kreuzberg that was enough to start conversations with other parents. Is that sensible or ridiculous? ‘Neither!’ I still want to shout at them. But unfortunately they can’t hear me anymore. Because by now I live in a little town in southern Germany. Not even a hundred thousand inhabitants, very traditional, very religious. Here my son’s preferences aren’t only a topic for the parents, they’re common talk.

Yes, I’m one of those fathers who try to raise their children equal. I’m not one of those academical dads that while studying keep blathering on about gender equality and as soon as there is a child fall back into the cuddly cliché role images: He self-actualizes in his job, she takes care of the rest.

With that, I have realized now, I am part of a minority that occasionally makes a fool out of itself. Out of conviction.

In my case it has to do with me not wanting to persuade my son not to wear dresses and skirts. Since he wasn’t making friends by doing that in Berlin, after due consideration I only had one choice. To square my shoulder for my little guy and put on a skirt myself. After all I can’t expect the same assertiveness of a preschool child than I do of an adult. Without a role model. So I am the role model now.

So back then in Berlin we already had skirt and dress days when the weather was tepid. Long skirts with elastic bands quite suit me, I think. Dresses are more difficult. The Berliners reacted hardly at all or positive. They are used to weird people. In my little town in southern Germany that’s a little different.

With all the stress while moving I forgot to tell the teachers at kindergarten to make sure my boy won’t be laughed at because of his preference. A short time later he didn’t dare to go to kindergarten in a skirt or dress. And asked me with big eyes: ‘Papa, when will you wear a skirt again?’.

Until this day I am grateful to that woman who kept staring at us in the pedestrian zone until she ran into a lamp post. My son was roaring with laughter. And the next day he took a dress out of the cupboard again. At first only for the weekend. Later for kindergarten as well.

And what’s the guy doing by now? He paints his fingernails. He think it looks pretty on me, too. He smiles when other boys (it’s almost always boys) want to make a fool out of him and says: ‘You just don’t dare to wear dresses and skirts because your fathers don’t dare to.’ That’s how much he has squared his shoulders by now. Thanks to dad in a skirt.

(via peekadora)

(via http://internal-acceptance-movement.tumblr.com/)

aLIVE

Tonight I got a tattoo. It's funny really, at 22 it really isn't a big deal, just another thing in life. But it was so much more than that. It was 10 min of pain not even close that the past has brought, it was a symbol of moving past surviving, it's a symbol of learning to live, it was the last 10 min I will emotionally cry for the last 20 months, it was a symbol of awareness, and it was closure.

The road ahead isn't going to be easy, hell it might even be worse, but no more am I simply surviving. I have a long way to go, an awfully long way to go, but for the first time in 20 months I feel whole. I feel like I have finally reached a point in my life where I'm no longer fighting to survive, I am learning to live. While it isn't a walk on the beach, the pain wasn't as bad as the emotions that came before. There may not be an end in sight right now but it's time for me to Live despite the disease not surviving under it. Wether it's a good day or a bad day I will Live that day with all I have, because now I finally feel aLIVE.

My Drive, My Need. My Life.

Because Your You

I'll never understand why I do the things I do, say the things I say, keep the things I keep. Maybe one day, if I'm lucky, someone will tell me and it will simply be "because your you".

Journey and Purpose

I'm working on it.

Time Apart Makes the Heart Grow Stronger

      As each semester comes to a close I find it funny how much of me wishes it wasn't ending. It seems as though when finals start approaching so does my want for it to end. By that time the endless days and nights of clinicals, homework, tests, EBL's and nights of no sleep have me begging for a break. But here I am wishing I was there. It surprises me really just how much I can miss someone, even when sometimes I just saw them hours ago. Sometimes it hits me so hard it literally hurts. And yet you'd think after doing this for so many years I'd learn. I learn not to wish it all away. Maybe its worse this year because the future seems so uncertain or maybe its for a different reason.

      If you had told me three months ago that the last two weeks of school would be what they were, I'd laugh in your face. I always wanted to tell them, to tell anybody really but it isn't who I am. It still isn't really but I'm learning. It only came after days and weeks of someone constantly tearing down walls to get in. I wanted them in, I didn't know if I wanted anyone else but I wanted them, I just didn't know how. During one particularly hard set of days this person told me, "It may hurt to let them in but it's hurting you  more keeping them out, by letting them in you're not being weak you're letting them be your strength." I have a long way to go to get "used" to this whole thing and everything that comes with it, but now I'm not alone and as much as it still surprises me, as hard as some days are to accept, I know they're there no matter what. I just wish it didn't hurt so much to be apart.

I Want You

Sometimes the Heart wants what the Head knows it can't have.