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.
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