Live Mental--Life With Bipolar Disorder, Among Other Things: Cupids, candy, and all that other crap

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Cupids, candy, and all that other crap

OK, so here's another veering off of the main topic I've been writing about. But I really need to talk about...Valentine's Day.

I have several issue with VD as I like to call it. Maybe such issues stem from bad experiences in the past (there were certainly enough bad relationships to create such an outlook), or maybe it's because I detest the color pink. Both are true, but I think that, specifically, I don't see a point in such nonsense. Now I'm a passionate and fairly romantic woman, but if my man has to show me he loves me in a big way on VD to prove he really does love me (or me him), then there is a problem in the relationship.

Having said that, there is a part of me that would be thrilled to death to receive a big bundle of flowers on VD. I must admit...but less thrilled than to receive a big bundle on just an ordinary every day, day.

I don't know. Every year I have this anxiousness that builds during the first days of February. Last February my guy and I were breaking up, so that might contribute to my anxiousness, but I really think it's more than that. I think that we put expectations on things and then are fearful that those expectations won't be fulfilled. We don't want to be disappointed in the other person for not following through on something we keep telling ourselves is not important. OK not "we". Maybe just "me". Hmmm. Anybody confused here?

Bottom line. If he loves me, he loves me, whether my girlfriends receive diamonds and roses, while I get a verbal, "I love you baby." Is that really the bottom line? Is that what really matters to me?

My mom said something profound the other day...she often does...she said that she sometimes has to look at my dad and then at what she wants from him and decipher if he can give her what she is wanting. If he is incapable of giving what she wants, can she accept that she won't get it, and be willing to take what he can give? I love that. My answer is that as long as my guy is loving me from the heart, all the rest if superfluous, and that includes VD.

Life' s little ironies

I sat on a stool at the end of the counter watching my friend, inventory merchandise she had just received for her natural foods store. We were just catching up on all the gossip in small town Powell when the door was flung wide and a woman who looked to have wandered far and away from the red light district of some other state (none of the towns in Wyoming are big enough to have red light districts) made a rather dramatic entrance.

“Sarah, where is your mother,” she asked, though it sounded more like an exclamation than a question as she hurled the words like small pebbles at my friend. She stepped forward slamming the door shut behind her, its little jingly bells that announced a new caller sounding wildly with the force. The woman took another step forward toward the counter glancing briefly my way, and then dismissing me once she had determined me of no use to her. I heard Sarah answer but what she said was lost to me as I stared in fascination at the woman.

Her hair was a very yellowed bleached blonde with dark roots of about two inches. Her makeup was thickly caked on her face, her eyes painted with frosty baby blue eye shadow. She wore a white tank top that was low cut and kept falling off one shoulder. She had on a wide black belt over her hot pink miniskirt, which was so short it hardly qualified as one. Leopard tights and high-heeled boots completed the ensemble. She was tall and thin and I had the impression of taffy having been pulled to distortion.

But it wasn’t the ensemble that had me entranced. No. It was something else. There was an energy emanating from her; a kind of frenetic-ness that had me both fascinated and frightened. She was hurling words at my friend so fast and with such force, I expected to see Sarah thrown backward from the impact as if hit by bullets. I realized I was staring openly, my mouth ajar, and quickly shut it. I felt as though I was watching a human bomb detonating right in front of my eyes. I couldn’t even concentrate on what she was saying, or even understand it for that matter. I marveled at Sarah’s composure and ability to decipher what the woman was saying, such was the speed of her dialogue.

In my mind it seems as though the conversation was lengthy, but in reality I believe it only lasted a few minutes. The woman left in the same manner she had come, throwing the door open. It swung shut with a swoosh of air, leaving a final benediction of the small jingling bells. I looked at Sarah and said, “What was the matter with that woman? She acts like she’s on drugs.”

Sarah smiled calmly, “No she’s not on drugs. She’s a friend of my mom’s. She has a mental illness called manic-depression.” (bipolar disorder)

I stared out the glass door, still able to see the woman’s retreating form. I sighed, looking up at the ceiling for a moment feeling drained and thinking, “I am so glad I don’t have that.” I was frightened by what I had witnessed and I was so relieved to know I wasn’t like her.

It wasn’t too many years later as I sat in a doctor’s office looking at the ceiling that I remembered the incident with the woman in Sarah’s shop. I was in a psychiatrist’s office and he was in the process of diagnosing me with bipolar disorder, otherwise known as manic-depression. Generally I appreciate irony in life. It is often amusing. In this particular case, though, I was not amused.

Live Mental--Life With Bipolar Disorder, Among Other Things

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Cupids, candy, and all that other crap

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Life' s little ironies

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