Library of Wisdom
Hard-earned lessons from lives shared by choice — every card donated deliberately by its author, with the whole life behind it. The Library is young; it grows one life at a time.
2 cards from 1 life on hardship & survival.
🧠 Mental health · 🔥 Hardship & survival · ⛰️ Failure & setbacks
The drinking years
From '71 to about '78 I tried to drown something that swims. That's the whole story of drinking, anybody's drinking, and you can have it for free: the thing you're pouring on swims. Angela didn't save me — get that straight, nobody saves you, that's movie talk. She just refused to pretend it wasn't happening, out loud, at the table, every time. That plus a VA basement full of men who'd been where I'd been. If you're in years like those: it swims. Deal with it dry.
To someone younger: It swims. Deal with it dry.
— Frank Moretti · Marine, tool-and-die maker, grandfather — Toledo, OhioDemonstration
🕯️ Grief & loss · 🕊️ Regret & forgiveness · 🔥 Hardship & survival
The two names
There are two names on the Wall I read every time I'm in Washington. Tommy Kowalski, and a kid from Georgia we called Brick because of how he swam. You don't get over it. Anybody tells you that you get over it, walk away from that person, they have nothing for you. What you do is carry it. And after enough years the carrying stops being a weight and starts being part of your legs. You walk different. You walk anyway.
— Frank Moretti · Marine, tool-and-die maker, grandfather — Toledo, OhioDemonstration