As a disabled person, I can particularly find truth in that. It’s better for me to accept and move forward than to wonder what my life would have been like if I hadn’t gotten so sick at 13, if the doctors had figured it out sooner, or if I hadn’t been born with a weakened immune system. That’s not to say I don’t sometimes find myself miserably pitying myself with those “what ifs,” but I definitely don’t let them dominate my life like I did five to ten years ago.

I have other “what ifs” I worry about. They’re the ones we all do — about choices in love, career, education, and whether to go to the gym or the ice cream shop around the corner. Those are pretty standard life decisions to bother yourself with.

My biggest these days has nothing to do with any of the above. Mine is, “what if I’d been able to articulate then what I can now and admitted to all my career counselors that in terms of career, I’ve never wanted anything more than to be on stage… as a drag queen?”

I actually think that admitting that much earlier on might have gotten me a lot of the related help I needed a lot sooner. Hearing that this poor agoraphobe actually wanted to be on stage, maybe they would have gotten me help for my social phobia sooner instead of simply labeling me resistant and a school denier. Maybe it would have clicked in someone’s head that I was looking for a reason to hold my head up high, despite then being unable to make eye contact with anyone. Perhaps I would have been forced, terrified, into some performance classes — where I dearly wanted to be but was too scared to go near.

What if. Maybe I’d be able to be me now, if I’d admitted to me then.

What was once a sign of the working class is now a sign of the bourgeois. Except I’m basically unemployed, can’t afford a manicure, and every job I have held in the past decade has been in a form of the service industry, give or take. I don’t have a high school diploma, let alone college, my “middle class values” are laughable, and my husband and I barely slide into the DC area economic middle class — we make it by a paltry few thousand per year. Last year, the two of us combined made half the average D.C. wage for one person, and this year I’m not working so we will be making about two-thirds to half the average wage.

So how bourgeois is soil under my nails, really? Are urban gardening and farming really a food revolution, or short-lived hobby for fiscally comfortable foodies? Once the aching backs and cracking knees of their proletariat forefathers set in, and the first longing for the old conveniences that our grandparents so eagerly embraced at the supermarket, maybe reality will set in for some. For others, maybe dirt in the skirt will stick. Maybe some will truly embrace their newly founded Victory Gardens.

My husband asked me, if folks are calling them Victory Gardens again, what are they emblematic of this time around? Our food buying and eating habits certainly are not making an impact on Afghanistan, so what are we seeking to be victorious of? I think this time around, the fight is against ourselves and the relationships we have cultivated with food: with reliance upon ease of access, with our desire for sugars and starches and all things super-sized, with comfort grazing, with the rise in eating disorders, with Big Agra and the failing regulators at the Department of Agriculture, and with our own crumbling health due to the above factors.

There was an increase in small scale gardening and farming in the 1960′s and 70′s due to the hippies back-to-the-land movement.  What we are experiencing now is similar.  Of course, most of those ideals failed to stick then, though there are quite a few stubborn stalwarts from that era who have gone on to mentor the new generation.  I like to hope that some of what is going on now will catch on at a national level and really sink in deep, make solid change where it is badly needed.  Optimist/pessimist.  Only one can win.

It was so, so sad being there. I really didn’t know my grandparents that well, but I had come to respect them in the past few years. Going through their stuff, sorting it for trash, donation, or to divide among the family, I came to know them better. I have an amazing amount in common with my grandmother; I hadn’t realized how much. The more I learn, the parallels become clear. It makes me feel empty, lonely, guilty, that I didn’t get to spend more time with them, get to know them better once I became an adult — once I began to understand them.

Going through the life’s detritus of people I actually know (I’ve done abandoned houses before, which is different) was bizarre. There were so many photographs of me, particularly in the first 18 months in my life, which is both when my grandmother was teaching herself to become a photographer and was when they still lived in D.C. She had awards for photos of me as a toddler, which I didn’t know. She had other photos published all over the place, including National Geographic. Finding so many pieces of my grandparents’ lives and having to decide what was important — in the attic we found Hebrew prayer books published in 1906 that had come over from Poland when my family immigrated — and what wasn’t — musty rolls of wrapping paper, boxes of empty bottles of photo chemicals, old medical records from my grandfather’s practice, etc.

When my mother’s parents died, I wasn’t invited to be apart of breaking down the household, partially because my aunts still live in the house. But this time around, I’m the oldest grandchild, and also the only one interested in “the family,” as it were. As such, I found the family mezuzah that had hung on the door on the house here 60 years ago, and I actually get to keep it. But I also shed a lot of tears. Going through your loved one’s things in this way, it isn’t something I’d wish on anyone.

I grew up thinking I had bigger boots to fill than I was apparently suited for. I thought I was going to stomp all over the stratosphere and leave sizable imprints behind me as evidence of my impact. Lately, I’ve found my self-importance has ranked me lower than an ant in Yellowstone National Park — not just small, unobtrusive, hard to find — but a molecule in the atmosphere, floating willy-nilly with no purpose, invisible to everyone except those who can imagine I am t/here.

Over the years, I’ve gone from dreams of megalomania to the realization that I’m melting away into the wallpaper, unnoticed, untouched, and not truly responsible for anything except my own demise.

Maybe this is growing up? When youth’s dreams of greatness melt away to the reality of mediocrity in a non-meritocracy, maybe this is what remains — defeat. Or maybe this is the other side of mental illness — having chased away the Phoenix who wanted to soar, I’m now lured by the Hob who hangs out at home, helping around the house and hoping to be invisible.

Because I feel like I could be painted into the wallpaper around you, but you still wouldn’t see me. Apparently, I’m not to be seen.

Or maybe this is actually the worsening of mental illness — having realized that big boots and awesomeness were not possible, I decided that I would be nothing, no one. I diluted what I was — and I miss what I was — in order to “get by.” Except getting by means not doing anything at all. No goals, no substance, no drive, no hobbies — everything was washed away in the quest to get rid of the impossibility of making the mania feel happy, justified, complete, or accomplished. Sack the bitch and get left with the non-producing sow.

Is it the certainty of youth that I miss, or the disease? Was the drive all due to my age, or sickness? Now that I’m older and have my diseased mind in better control, who am I? Am I anything? Do I feel anything, think any non-diseased thought? Will I ever truly be able to reconcile how I feel about what I did in my youth (at times, all of a year ago!)? Or is it just this, from here on out, this vagueness, this even-tempered grey area of the mind that rarely visits the colored world anymore? Perhaps this is why my (much older) second cousin (on my father’s side, which is the side with all the bipolar people like myself) refuses to take medication. Maybe it’s the medication that detaches you from life. Or maybe it’s growing up. Or maybe it’s the disease progressing to a downward turn. Or maybe this is just how I’m supposed to be — once a bright light, now dim and dusty.

I don’t know.

The more time goes by, the harder it is to think, to write, to provide conjecture about these things. The more I just fall into this grey place where I’m not sure I should be, but I don’t know how else or where else to go — particularly because maybe I’m supposed to be here.

One thing is for sure: I miss the stinging clarity mania pretends to provide. It might not be real, but it feels damn good at the time.

List the ten most expensive things (products, services or experiences) that you have ever paid for (including hosues, cars, university degrees, marriage ceremonies, divorce settlements and taxes). Then, list the ten items that you ahve ever bought that gave you the most happiness. Count how many items appear on both lists.

Ten Most Expensive Purchases (In Order of Expense)

1. House (pending)


2. Car (2009)


3. Higher education (ongoing)


4. Family Wedding (April 2008)


5. 4 trips to Scotland (various)


6. Servers (1999)


7. Engagement/Wedding Party for Friends (April 2008)

Ten Purchases That Have Brought Most Happiness (In Order of Happiness)

1. Finding a place to live after having been homeless


2. The first visit to the veterinarian that saved my little Annie cat’s life


3. 4 trips to Scotland


4. Various books, records, and CDs


5. Various gifts for other people


6. Phone cards, phones, and whatever it takes to make phone calls work


7. Medication & therapy (this tops all the expenses but not all at once)

I think of tears, of crying, because I want to have a good weep and let it out, but I can’t. It’s just not there. I think it’s the medication — it’s allowed me to maintain my sanity and to even stay relatively happy through all the extra stress, but I’m worried about how healthy that is — the artificial balance, I mean. Because even now, when I feel like sobbing, I can’t, and that feels wrong.

I’m dreadfully lonely and I miss my grandfather.

I feel like all the progress in the past year has been artifice designed to fool myself and those around me, but it really hasn’t taken me anywhere I want to be.

I climb on top only to not like what I see when I get there.

I desperately want one of the jobs at the animal shelters that I’ve applied at, but that appears to be going nowhere. I want something meaningful; I feel like I’m just living hand to mouth, both financially and emotionally/spiritually.

I miss myself. I guess that’s normal — when you get older you miss how it was when you were young and you felt calm, or interesting to others, or full of hope, or whatever it was you feel that you lost over the years.

What’s really been killing me on the inside of late is the realization that I miss all these times in my life when I thought I was truly miserable.

For example, coming out of middle school I was seriously depressed and up until about five years ago I thought those two years were the most troubling times I had every experienced. Now, I miss how happy I was during that time — all the friends I had, how challenged I was in school (and how I loved the challenge), the drive of being around a group of one hundred equally interesting, talented, and intelligent people (er, kids). But I wasn’t all that happy then, in fact I tried to kill myself twice during those years. And now I regard it as the happiest and most satisfied I’ve ever been.

What does this mean?! I realize I can’t see the time as black and white — it’s not just good or bad, but both. But just the fact that I now consider those years to have been the best of my life so far — what does that say about me?

That was 15 years ago, for a start; has truly nothing been better? And if I was trying to kill myself during the best time of my life, am I some sort of truly sick masochist?

What’s perhaps more troubling is the question of why haven’t I considered myself to be that happy since then?

What’s been wrong with me, or my life, that I’ve been unhappy? What’s been missing with now compared to then? Easy — consistent stimulation/challenge shared with a large group of very tight friends. Friends, a group of friends. Learning and producing. Hell, no wonder my life feels empty, meaningless in comparison.

I’ve been helping a friend deal with his love interest’s psychological problems. It’s starting to get to me a little bit, because it’s dredging up old issues within myself that I had previously managed to get over or forget about to the point of making them moot.

I’m afraid I’m going to have to tell him that I have to take a break and not talk about it for a few weeks because it’s starting to drag me back into my old head space. He mentions how she is and asks how to handle it, then I remember the similar ways I was and how things were or weren’t handled. The more we talk, the more I remember, and the more the old thought processes come back.

It’s a shame because he has told me I’ve been really helpful, and god knows I love being of service.

Self-preservation is telling me that I have to step back, but the desire to help others is pushing me to stay the course and learn to suck it up. Teeter-totter. If I run, I’ll feel like a (self-preserved) asshole. If I stick it out, my mental health could keep deteriorating (or it might not).

Was I happier when I was with Dr Maude or is it just that life was that less complicated then, thus making retrospect seem easier and therefore less stressed? I know I shouldn’t compare but every day I’m overwhelmed with the idea that I made a huge and terrible mistake. I don’t know how to let go of that idea, how to move on and just let the past be what it was without it having to be something to regret (or not). I know it’s easier to let go when there is something else to focus on, but nothing is catching my focus these days like I need it to.

The next time my phone rings, please let it be good news.

I’ve spent a lot of time the past year coming to terms with the idea, or fact, that the greatest hindrance to myself in “succeeding at life” has been myself. Yes, I’ve dealt or deal with poverty, disease, moving my home a great deal, sickness, bankruptcy, death, gimpiness, and related issues, but really the root cause of failure is myself. I set myself up to fail by taking too much on, often at inopportune times, and when I see failure on the horizon I generally (nine times out of ten) panic, then neglect to fight the impending failure. I’m perpetually scared of trying and failing, which means it is much easier to fail by not trying — failure by default. Ironically, the times where I do actually apply myself and try, I don’t fail, so I have no idea where this fear of failure or sense that I will always be doomed to fail has come from.

It’s been massively hard to admit to myself that I just have to do things and quit worrying about failing at them. Wiping out twenty years of negative mentality, pretty much by myself, is no different from trying to quit drinking or to lose thirty pounds without outside support — everything around me reminds me of how I used to think and how much easier (for now) it would be to give in and continue to think and behave with the negative mind set. Easier, yes, but it won’t get me anywhere.

Now that I’ve realized I’ve been holding myself back, I have to figure out what it is exactly I’ve been holding myself back from. Of course, that’s always been a part of the negative mentality behind the fear of failure:

If I pick something I like and fail at it, then I can’t do it.

If I pick something I think I like but then don’t like it, I wasted all those resources on getting there and then really won’t know what to do with myself afterward.

If I pick something I like and am good at it, but my health flairs up and I can’t maintain it no matter what I do, then my heart will be crushed, so I better pick something I can do within the limits of my health.

How do I know what I like best and how do I figure out what I can do within my health limits among those choices?

Fuck.

Failure by default, by not trying or barely trying, is so much easier and less dream shattering!

All of the above brings me to discuss The Day I had today (it would have been eventful if everything that took place happened over the course of two weeks, but not, it all had to happen today). Except… my sleeping pill has kicked in nicely and I desperately need a rest. To be continued in the latter morn.

But there’s something else that makes me feel better, and that’s been helping people this week.

A friend’s lady friend got herself into a bad mental health situation, so he asked me to help him out with some advice and resources. He sort of interviewed me about being bipolar and then asked for ways to help her. I gave him resources and ideas of ways he could suggest to her to get help. She ended up agreeing to commit herself and go back on medication.

With my permission, my therapist gave my name and number to another of her patients in order to get help with acquiring SSI, DORS, prescription assistance, and the like. The patient’s mom ended up calling me and we talked for about thirty minutes. I told her about program nuances, various benefits, and other related information. Told her she could call me any time. She thanked me profusely. It sounds like her daughter is quite a bit like I was at 19, in terms of mental health and not being able to hold a job down. With the help of the programs, this girl’s now got a real chance to get it together and move forward.

Thing is, though, I don’t want to be a social worker.

I was at a party this past Saturday night where I ended up explaining how to use privacy filters and the limited profile option on Facebook to a group of 50-60 year olds. I also told them where to go for good and fast Microsoft Office classes, the benefits of having an external backup, and where to shop for a new laptop. But I don’t want to work in IT, either.

I liked giving advice to new models, but I don’t want to be a model manager.

I like bartending as long as I’m making people happy.

Wait, maybe this is the root of it. I like making people happy, to the point of neurosis. I will try way too hard to make people smile and enjoy themselves. I make a fool of myself, over commit myself, spend way too much money, buy presents for acquaintances, and just generally love to turn people on (not just sexually, duh). I have a desire to please, but I’m in no way a submissive.

How do I make this translate into a career, or should I even try to? That’s the trouble, is that I KNOW that by placing my self-worth on other people’s happiness, I set myself up for trouble, low self-esteem, and ultimately, failure. So do I just try to find something where there is no making people happy — like being a critic — even though making people happy is what I love to do?

Maybe I should just be a clown.

Ideas?

I like Technology Works For Good and the triage-type help clinics at So Others Might Eat.