She's Going Down For Awhile

It doesn't take much to knock you off that narrow fence you try to traverse in your journey through life with bipolar disorder. It's a high wire act to hold so still, while moving forward. Any other illness or new medical condition can trip your wire. The introduction of medications that might or might not interfere with your bipolar drugs can do it. And then no matter how careful you are, how little you do to stimulate or muffle your senses, it can just happen for no good or bad reason. And if you always were crazy for other good and valid reasons, whose to say whether or not it's bipolar disorder or general craziness that's sending you over the edge? But over the edge, and it might take weeks or years for you to regain that tenuous balance again. Or never. Lose your mojo and you just might never get it back. It might be just like love. Risky business.

There are so many prohibitions and restrictions. At some point you might feel straight-jacketed while out and about. It's embarrassing to be seen so addled, so trussed up, but opened like the acid moment when you understand that you can see under the skin, into the cell.

The one thing that scares me most is losing the spark that feels creative in me. This is probably all an illusion, but it's my illusion, and thus, my reality. And once lost, how will I ever know if I have it back, and if it's back will it feel the same, be as good, work as well? I am told often to take it one day at a time. So I get through one day, and then another, but day after day, I find myself missing. The thing that makes me the person I enjoy being is gone, and I might never get it back. And then the question becomes, how long can I live without the spark that makes me who I am? So finally, if I can no longer be the person I really am--the person I get a kick out of, the person who delights and entertains me with her dark wit and hard won wisdom--then what the fuck's the point? When it finally becomes pointless, it's essentially hopeless. And when it's hopeless, well, you might as well be dead, since you're just taking up space. And then I start counting the ways I could make it happen. My final creative act. This is something I've been contemplating since my late teens. So don't hold your breath.

I had a reason to keep writing this thing. I thought I had something to say. Now I don't. Sometimes I write such shit it embarrasses even me. And I'm not all that easily embarrassed.

Phillip, how about you take over for awhile? Or we'll just go silent while I finish editing "Maggy." I have stories still to write, but they are fiction and will be worked on in their own space. And since you are Sitenoise, what the hell do you need with the trouble that is Utah Savage?

I've probably said this before, but it's been fun while it lasted. Sorry if I offended you, or hurt your feelings, or embarrassed you, too.

While We're On The Subject, Let's Talk Crazy

I know it gets old, but that's easy for you to say, you don't have to live in my head. Try that for a month or so, and then you'll want to talk about it. You know what some people say: Crazy's like a box of chocolates--you never know what you're gonna get till you bite into it, and sometimes, it's not what you had in mind. Hell, if I could choose not to be crazy, would I? Maybe, maybe not. Am I the kind of woman who bites into a chocolate that's a little more exotic than I bargained for and then spits it out? Hell no, I eat that fucker. And sometimes I enjoy it. If I weren't crazy would I still be able to write? Would I still love with such ferocity? These are questions of no small importance to me. But I will tell you this: there are certain drugs for my kind of craziness that I will not take. No matter what. Because they kill the creative impulse in some, and that's enough to scare the bejeezus out of me.

I won't say what the drugs are that I will never, ever take, because they save the lives of millions. But for me, if I couldn't write, I rather die, and that's the honest to god's truth. Writing is like breathing for me. I can't live without it.

When I lived with husband number three, he was the writer, and I was his life support. I typed his rough drafts and edited them for him. I read aloud to him every book he was required to read for his PhD in English Lit/Creative Writing. The morning he went to take his Orals, I sat bolt upright out of a sound sleep and said, "Good luck. And remember, the fork ran away with the spoon."

I used to suggest story ideas to him, and he'd always reject them. Well, Junior, these stories are mine, now. Good luck. And as a writer, how are you liking the job as Chairman of the English Department? And the student you got pregnant and had to marry? Has she left you yet? Hope you get to see the kids now and then.