Loose String

My Mr. Magoo Moment

When I was growing up my mother was a source of constant amusement for us.  She was always doing or saying something completely goofy.  It was not from a lack of general intelligence.  She just sometimes was not very quick on the uptake.  Or she would be in the middle of a tirade and say something spectacularly silly.  Good Lord help you if you laughed. 

I am proud to say that I am continuing in the grand tradition of dithering mothers who have gone before me.  I, however, choose to embrace my goofiness and encourage my family to laugh along.

The other day I was walking into the livingroom with my glasses in my hand while I was cleaning them.  I am completely blind without my glasses.  I cannot see clearly farther than five inches in front of my nose.  The very fact that I was walking around without my glasses is dangerous and potentially hazardous.  But I am familiar with my house and it was a fairly bright morning so I was feeling up to the challenge.  I walked into the livingroom and stood for a moment while I finished cleaning the glasses.  I knew the puppies were in there and they usually run up to greet me so when I saw a black/darkish elongated shape on the floor I leaned forward a bit and began to talk my usual nonsense to what I assumed to be Maggie (girl mini-dachshund).  It only took me a second to become puzzled over why she was not moving.  Maggie is a tail-wagger and, because she wags with such enthusuiasm, her whole body moves when she does so.  For this reason we call her "Miss Wiggle".  She shakes her bottom with the enthusiasm of a go-go dancer.  Her lack of movement , as I say, was puzzling. Until I realized that I was addressing a pair of boots.

That is correct.  I was talking to shoes. Baby-talking to shoes.

I could be sad that I have obviously slipped so far mentally.  I could be ashamed of my goofiness.   Instead I choose to embrace it as a proud family legacy.  Glad I could be of service.

I woke up in between a memory and a dream

I keep working this concept of explanation over and around in my mind.  Worrying it.  Like a light will come on and suddenly the words will be perfect and I can make an understandable definition of what goes on inside my head.  The truth is that there is no perfect.  It is not easy to make sense of.  But here goes.

I spend a lot of time inside my head.  It's sort of a carnival in there.  Replete with rides that go 'round in circles and never reach a destination, games of chance and skill that have very low odds on paying off in the end and some toothless carnies that travel with the show and set up the rides while recovering from last night's bender.  The metaphor and similes stretch and strain and labor here.  It is a place that seems fun for the first hour or so but loses it's "shiny" rather rapidly.  But , the truth is that it is something that is familiar to me.  Familiar is so easily equated with comfortable.

I spent a lot of years and a lot of time trying to get rid of the noises in my head.  The anxieties and the rapidly cycling moods and emotions.  Because I thought that I needed them to be gone.  That I needed to erase the program I came with and get myself the same one that everyone else seemed to have.  Happy shiny thoughts and no worries.  No blues.  I dumped a lot of medication down my throat.  Pills prescribed by mental health professionals.  Liquid in glasses and bottles of all colors and flavors.  And sometimes the noises stopped.  The buzzing went away.  But never for very long.

About six years ago I gave up all of the medications.  Prescribed and self-prescribed.  All of it.  It was difficult in the beginning.  But I was convinced that it was the right thing for me.  I had allowed everyone else their best shot at fixing me and none of it seemed to stick.  In the end I decided that there had to be some way to work around the "problem".  To adapt and overcome and move through.  And so that is what I have learned to do.  Sometimes I am happy, happy, happy and manic.  I try to channel all of the energy and forward momentum into something productive and positive.  Sometimes I am sad and lethargic and even the thought of conversation is tiring, so tiring.  I hibernate.  I conserve the energy I have and apply it to the necessary functions.  The bare minimum.

This is what works for me.  But it can be a bit difficult to explain to the rest of the world.  And sometimes I don't want to explain.  This is when I disappear.  I don't want to have to edit myself.  Sometimes I am angry or crabby or blue and it is okay with me.  It just is what it is.  I know it is temporary.  I always know that it is going to pass.  There is an ebb and a flow and sometimes it seems stuck in ebb but it will flow.

Insomnia

I stay up late.  Sewing or reading or just watching the television.  Sometimes I complain about the insomnia but mostly I like it.  I like being alone with my thoughts.  I like to sew and come up with new ideas.  The house seems so fraught with activity when everyone else is awake.  It jangles my nerves and sets my mind to wandering into places it ought not to be wandering.

Lately I have come up with a plan.  I will move back to New Mexico after an absence of more than twenty years and I will pick up where I left off.  I will go into the Photography program at the University and finish my degree.  I will find a cute little home for me and the puppies in the student ghetto housing adjacent to the University.  I will have breakfast at the Frontier and hang out with my friend Amber. 

At least one puppy can go along.  Ideally I would take both of them but there is a joint custody issue with a former boyfriend.  He takes visitation quite seriously. 

I want to go back.  I want to do over and do it right.  LIve in the moments and not spend all of my time worrying about what will be.  I want to be calm and relaxed.  I want this more than I can express in simple words. 

I want to sew pretty things and have people buy them.  I want to take fabulous pictures and have people admire them but mostly I want to take photos that I admire.  I want my life to be consumed with the creative.  Filled with possibility of creation and alchemy.

I will sit with these feelings for a while.  I am a bit manic by nature (and by diagnosis) so I always have to consider my plans with a skeptical and critical eye.  Maybe this is just the crazy talking after all.