Nothing New

The problem with having a writing blog is having something to write about.  It's hard when you don't have a topic.  I'm not depressed so I can't bring you all down to sit with me in my pity pit and wallow in the shallows of the dark murky waters of depression sea.  I'm not manic or you could bet I'd be pumping things out faster than you could read and you'e wonder what they hell I'd been smoking.  It's true, when I'm manic, there is no amount of drug that can put me to sleep.  I sit at a computer for five days and nights and pump out a complete 300 page novel.  I've done it before and when I tell the doctor, "Yeah, I'm doing great!  Just wrote a novel in five days!" They give me that look.  The one that is just short of sending you to the hospital with a bunch of drugs in your arms.  See that's the thing about mania that no one but those of us who go through it understand, for a little while, it's the best possible high in the world.  There is no drug in the world that could make you feel like this.  It's better than love, sex, food, your best day ever!  It's all those and more.  I really did write a coherent piece of writing that made complete sense and I read it again today and it still sounds like what I wanted to say.  I was angry, furious with my best friend.  He'd hurt me like I said no male would ever hurt me again.  The problem is my best friend is also my husband.  And I was completely isolated.  No one ever let me talk to them about my problems.  I was the listener.  Not the talker.  I fixed everyone else's problems.  I never was allowed my own problems.  So, I used my writing and my mania and I wrote every angry word and feeling and desire out and poured them into the pages of that novel.  It was the best therapy I could afford!  And then, when that one was finished and I was still angry with him, I wrote another novel, and another and another.  I probably got five or six completed novels out of that anger and that bout of mania.  And I'll never know if what he did to anger me triggered that mania, I think not because it came two months later, or if it was just the built up anger fed the mania.  This mania was focused, no sleep, very bad for my health and I did not participate in my family's life at all.  How could I?  I was writing non stop.  But the mania ended with no hospital stays, no suicide attempts or even thoughts and no major depression.  I came away exhausted of course, but feeling accomplished.


That anger is gone now.  Talked away and forgiven, never forgotten though.  Hints of it jab at me and whisper in that tape that plays all my insecurities back at me from time to time.  But I have promised myself, despite all I have put him through,  once my children are in college, if he ever hurts  me like that again, I will use that anger to leave.  I am hard enough on myself, I came from a family that was hard on me emotionally not understanding my sensitivity.  The same conversation/argument gets played out between us over and over and at times I wonder if I hate men. ( I always love books where the men shove it up the man's back side.  Olivia Goldsmith was my favorite writer for the longest time!  I've read every single one of her novels- She wrote The First Wive's Club, but the book was  much better than the movie!)  But I'm not really a big fan of women either.  I just like it when the women are winning out over the men.  Anywhere, in anything.  Maybe there's something wrong with me.   Let's see, I live in a house with three boys.  I have two male dogs.  No female friends around me at all.  There is the Red-Headed Demon still living here and I have not found a way to forgive her.  I know I need to for me to move on, but I have not found that to be a priority right now.  And I'm not even sure I know how to start.  But back to the men.  I think  that once you've lost your faith in someone or something, it's very hard to lose all your doubt.  Things happened to me when I was young, bad things, things I don't want to remember and I haven't believed in God in a long time.  If there was a God, why would he let that happen to me?  Where was he when that was happening?  Or does he just sit back and wait for the older person in the situation to do the right thing. Free will?  I didn't have a choice.  But I do have a choice as to whether I believe in a being that would sit back and let people die of hunger without lending a hand.  Let children kill each other with machetes.  Let women die of AIDS and leave their children orphans as infants.  Let children be sold into slavery.  Where is God in all of that?  How do I believe in God when that is all happening?  I don't know.  Yet, I do believe in something.  I do believe in purpose and I don't think life is just random.  I believe there is order in this chaos, somewhere.  I have no idea what my purpose is.  I think it's to write.  It's what I've always done.  But I don't paint beautiful pictures with my words.  I'm no poet.  My sentences are simple and my plot is stuck.  But every day, I read, I write, I learn and maybe I won't be an author in this lifetime.  Maybe I'll come back and do things different next time around.  I won't be afraid of what I have to face as a child.  It will make me stronger and I'll have courage and I'll learn to not be a victim of harsh words instead of waiting thirty five years to learn how to say, "Stop, that hurts my feelings."  God I feel like my life has just been one long battle with no victories sometimes.


My youngest, 11, asked me coming home from school if I had a good life, must have heard a line in a song or something.  I said yes I did.  I didn't want to tell him all my troubles.  He said, "Well your married.  So that's good.  You've got two kids.  That's good.  Or, maybe not, I guess we could be better."  I laughed and told him my kids were perfect.  He is not usually one to be self deprecating.  "Daddy has a job he likes.  And we're back in our old house."  I agreed and told him I needed a job, but I was scared.  It's been 14 years since I've been in the work place and I don't feel qualified to do anything.  The last thing I did was run a book store.  Last I looked they were closing those up right and left.  And the boy who is not known for his kind words says, "It's okay mom, I'll still love you even if you don't have a job."  I thanked him and laughed.  Then he asked me, "Why don't you be an author?"  I cracked up and tried to explain how that works.  Then he said "Then be an illustrator!"  The idea of being an illustrator is so far out of my realm of job skills that I could be a long haul truck driver before I was an illustrator.  He thinks because I can follow the instructions in the step by step drawing books I'm a great artist.  But I cannot think of something in my head and draw it.  But I gave him a mighty A for the effort and for making me laugh!  And for believing me.  That's the thing, my boys, all three of them believe in me even when I don't believe in myself.  So, maybe I won't leave the big guy after all.  I wouldn't know what to do with myself.  I would be a total recluse.  No, I need him much more than he needs me, but don't tell him I said that.


Oh and end of September, that's when my mania usually hits.  I'm off antidepressants this year so maybe no cycling-we'll see.  Coincidentally it's also my birthday at the end of the month.  I always wondered if feeling awful on my birthday had something to do with my being adopted.  I now know it has to do with having Bipolar Disorder and it's a common time of year to start those mood swings.  But see how the imagination can twist things up?