My brain has been scrambled and fried since I lost my mother. This is the first time in a very long time that I’ve been on an “up,” hypomania that allows me four hours of sleep a night, if that. The flip side is that I am very productive during these hours, so it is not all bad. It’s kind of like a superpower that I don’t know when or if will come. Most of the time, my Bipolar II presents as a down with very few ups. I do not cycle more than a few days a month, and sometimes I skip it entirely. I do not know whether this is my natural cycle, or if my medication helps (sarcasm because downs are sometimes intolerable). But I do know that when I swing upward, I am happier. It feels good to be productive, to want to go outside, to want to live life to the fullest rather than sitting in my room hoping that something will happen.
It will make me feel a lot better about being in a huge crowd this weekend at the Women’s March. I haven’t decided who I’m going with, because I might go with the UCC, and I might go with my friends. They’re trying to decide if they want to march with another group, or if they want to get their own group together. However, if I go with the UCC, it’s not like I won’t be with friends. I don’t know who from our church will be there, but I’m guessing Matt will, and that is enough. I am greatly hoping that men do not feel excluded from marching for women’s rights, because some of the best feminists I know are male UCC ministers.
It comes from an example that Jesus taught in one story about Martha and Mary. Martha gets hacked off that she’s doing all the cooking and cleaning (as Larry Gipson once said, churches love Marthas… not the hacked off part, but those that see cooking and cleaning as ministry, because it is). But Mary wanted to sit at Jesus’ feet with the rest of the Disciples and listen to what was being said, and Jesus welcomed her, even though in that time and place it Was. Not. Done. Jesus’ feminist example has echoed through time as Christianity has become more and more progressive, although there are still pockets where women are not allowed to preach, being “relegated” to Sunday school teachers because that is what’s seen as women’s work. I recognize that teaching children is perhaps even greater than preaching to the masses, but it is also an incredible glass ceiling (*squints hard at Fundamentalists*).
However, society will leave them behind, and that version of Christianity must change or die.
I have my own feelings about becoming the kind of person God has asked me to be, because sometimes I feel entirely unworthy, and at others, I know that unworthiness is unwarranted because no one in the Bible that Jesus ever called in the New Testament, or God called in the Old, was ever the type person you’d expect to wear the mantle. My saving grace is that I keep working on myself so that I am becoming a vessel instead of focusing on the parts of my heart that have turned black and need cleansing, because I am realizing one day at a time that those black spots can be cleaned with hard work. I have a long and interesting history of being emotionally messed up, and it is my goal before I am finished with grad school to be able to work without passing on my flaws to others.
It is already beginning, but there is a staircase, and I am somewhere in the middle of it, ever climbing toward the top. Perhaps it is Jacob’s Ladder, and perhaps I am building my own spiral. I can promise you that the pericope of Jacob wrestling with the angel resonates with me deeply, and in some ways, my emotional “stuff” to deal with are where God has touched my hip. I can only hope to heal the limp… Ironic only because my sciatica is a constant reminder physically of the road forward in therapy.
Every day, I make a choice to leave my past behind, or to continue to ruminate about it, trying to figure out where and why I went wrong. It is the natural dance of intimacy, getting closer to finding my true self and alternately running away from it. I know that I have been running since I was a teenager, and now it is time to stop. I have an incredible wealth of resources at my disposal now that Vesta takes my insurance again. Perhaps today is the day I will go back, because I have to take advantage of the productivity while it lasts.
The rest of the time, I am content to sit at my computer and send out resumés, because that takes barely any energy at all. I have also sent out applications for things that make money, but don’t require a lot of brain power, like working at a grocery store. I don’t know that it will make me happy, but what I do know is that I can save my brain power for writing as opposed to being tethered to my laptop 24 hours a day. I am capable of that life, and have often done it, and what I have learned is that it keeps me busy enough that I don’t have time to think about where I am going and whether it is a direction or a distraction.
I will have time to think about it on vacation. I haven’t had a vacation in probably ten to fifteen years, and my father and my sister want me to meet them in Orlando to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I have tried copycat recipes of butterbeer, and I am hoping that the real thing is better. I also hope they have a bar, because I would like to try a Firewhisky… even though I am very particular about whisky and scotch. Peat moss makes me gag, because the nose is what I call “Band-Aids,” or at least the smell when you used to have to open the old tins. So, my particular advice is to stay away from Islay. I am the type person that will try anything once, but in this case it did not work out in my favor.
And it’s not like I didn’t try the best of the best. My friend David bought me a shot of The Balvenie, so if you’re going to try peat flavored whisky, I started at the top. It just wasn’t my thing. I would rather have a Diet Coke.
I’m excited about going to the park(s), and will definitely bring my Chuy’s “Expecto Burrito” t-shirt. Speaking of which, my dad got me a gift certificate for Chuy’s for Christmas, and though I did have two meals, I spent most of it on t-shirts, because their design team is so fabulous. One has the fish with Walter White’s hat and sunglasses and says “Heisenchuy.” One says “Super Tex-Mex Brothers,” and is a recreation of Super Mario Brothers in 8-bit for the original NES.
Before I go, I want to get a pair of cargo pants, because even though they’re not in fashion anymore, I would prefer it to carrying a bag through the park, and my stuff would be kept safe with snaps and buttons on the pockets. I may also activate my old iPhone 5c(heap) for the trip, because my Samsung is *huge.* I’d look like I had a tumor. Actually, perhaps I’ll get them today because they’d be handy for the march on Saturday as well. If, God forbid, I get arrested, I’ll at least be comfortable while I’m waiting for my buds to bail me out. I can’t imagine that with 200-400 thousand people that it would happen, but stranger things have happened, and strange things tend to happen to me. I’m also planning on going to the Metro station to fill up my card so I won’t have to wait in line for the machines. The tourists alone, oy vey.
I really want to write more because we haven’t talked in a while, but I need to get moving. Possibly more later- we shall see.
Love you miss you mean it. 🙂
Stories That Are All True 