My “WARRIOR” lipstick list is still in full force on the bathroom mirror. It continues to tally the more brutal moments I’ve gotten through in the past few months—the “no, thank you, I would rather die by leeches” events that my 30-year-old self could not have imagined, let alone taken on in upright fashion.
I’m up to 14. I try to be conservative about makes the Warrior count, and I’m kind of proud of that. It’s a very undramatic list, considering the year so far. I suppose keeping a warrior list on one’s bathroom mirror in lipstick may seem dramatic to some particularly steady, bookend-weighty people of the world. But I didn’t add glitter gloss. And I could have. So there.
Right under the Warrior List, I started a new tally.
The tally: now a smudgy “2.”
I’ve been testing myself. Seeing what I can manage again. And last night, I returned home from a successful event at the girls’ school. An auction fundraiser, with Reading as the theme. I wrote all of the copy for the 60+ items over a few weeks. I sprinkled the copy full of absurd book puns. I found books for the item displays. I found props. I made signs.
I dashed, I sprinted, I talked to lots of people. (Yes. I really did.) For several days straight I did this. I cleaned sinks. I cleaned toilets. I discovered a new strain of animal flu (soon to be identified as the Jenny Flu) in some revolting form of organic matter mummified beside a toilet. I took care of it. I Was Helpful, and it felt good. To give back. To give, after a year of receiving so very much love and care from so many in this community.
I told one friend that this event felt like the Psych Ward Coming-Out Ball for me. Not something that most folks could guess at. Only two souls who were there last night had seen me in my bathrobe with the belt removed, behind locked doors and windows, after all. But for me there was a profound sense that I was returning to society, changed.
I worked thoughtfully the past two weeks, pacing myself, to give as much as I could with my still-foggy head. It doesn’t show to the casual observer, but it’s a mind that is still easily depleted, or too susceptible to speeding up into a useless, occasionally dangerous, tailspin. Balance is hard to come by, with the Polar Bear Disease.
I am wearier, humbler, and it is not just age. I am more aware of my limitations than ever before. On the medication, I’m shaky. I lurch. The spoken word is difficult. Words do not find me; I have to dig my nails in the ground and sift and scratch for them. It’s uncomfortable. It’s also lonely, because I seem well enough to most people. There is no way to convey to them that I am speaking through thick hedges, through porridge, through a wall of water. There is no way for anyone to know this. I can barely find the words to explain it.
Still, I’m grateful that there are chemicals and salts to herd my brain’s snapping, snarling neurons. I am more grateful for what I can do, and what I’ve been given. Nothing is the same now. I grieve this, all that I have lost and given up, but perhaps this new path will lead to a destination I can’t imagine yet. I’ve heard of such things. I have.
And I had a lovely night. The event went beautifully. Our committee did a bang-up job, led by my dear friend Janine, who is solid and steady, and thus miraculous to me. I can’t express how wonderful it felt to be standing up straight last night in the transformed cafeteria, glittering with lights we’d strung, displays we’d created. The room was packed full of good, good people, all celebrating the school we love for our kids—but also for ourselves. It is a quirky school, full of rare and odd souls and unique relationships and unorthodox life situations. The children bloom here, but so do the parents and teachers.
At this same event, a few years back, I was manic, soaring. It was not something I could help, and it was not something I was willing to recognize at the time, either. The medicine was not working, and I was swinging high, high.
I thought of that last night, and cringed a little as I passed through the room of a particularly manic moment. The beginning of the downfall? Impossible to pinpoint anything now. I drank lightly last night. I ate in moderation. I did my job. I circulated. I listened. I listened. I listened. I took it all in, keeping both feet on the floor. Steady as she goes. Will the wildness come again? Yes, possibly. Will I recognize it for what it is, when it comes? I don’t know. I can’t know.
Funny how the “one day at a time” mantra applies to all.
This morning, I woke up in an empty house, with sore legs, blisters on the soles of my feet, a house to purge, and a front window covered in splattered egg and eggshell. I considered the egg, assessed the chances of the egging being a last warning from a particularly juvenile serial killer. I made coffee, talked to the dogs.
I went to the bathroom. I picked up my lipstick. I turned the new tally’s “1″ into a “2.” Despite the egging—and the hole in the roof—I was happy last night. A second time in a month, two months? Then, overnight, it mellowed into contentment. And already I can feel it slipping some.
It’s okay. I will let it go. Maybe it will linger next time, maybe I will find a way to keep contentment playing at my feet for longer periods.
No matter. I will quietly go about the business of this day. I will find slippers that don’t hurt, I will keep cleaning this funny, falling-apart house, I will stack bills that I can and can’t pay, and I will take vinegar to the eggs on the window. And when I put in some laundry, I will stop to look at the number “2″ on my bathroom mirror, and I will breathe it in. Two. It’s a lovely number, serpentine, with a steady base. But when it’s ready to become a three, I’ll be happy to let it go.
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