What a roller coaster ride I had yesterday. The greatest of joys for the total beauty of the day, competing with the deepest of sadness. I have a gift for mixed episodes of bipolar disorder, and yesterday was a work of art...being new to the borderline personality disorder diagnoses, I am never sure how that fits in, but I have no doubt it was there with me, participating.
Frightening is too passive a word. All that I could resolve was that I had to make it through the day without drinking or cutting. Being self-aware, I also made sure that I did not spend the entire day in my apartment, enjoying 'alone' time. Although a lovely spring day, spent in the forest quiet that is my companionship with my animals, can be an amazing way to keep my sanity.
I spent some hours with my friend, the Saucy Brit, in her gem of a shop in Salem. It is an escape of mine that is a Faberge egg experience...the sunlight sparkles, and the scents abound. I can run my hand over brightly colored 'vegan' pocketbooks, or through shockingly colored dresses. It is every little girl's fairyland, just what I needed for my birthday. Lime, turquoise, hot pink, hot blue, early green, and the loveliest of accents always make my visits memorable.
Visits to her store, Plantagenet Rose, have turned into a get well pilgrimage. The colors change with the seasons and never fail to lift my mood. I don't know the secret here...but my best guess is that the colors, and most important, the woman I visit, reflect some part of the best of my childhood. Where fields are always the brightest of greens, and I run into colors and shapes and forms I have never seen before. How is it that, at almost 50 years on this earth, that I run into something so unusual to the eye, that I feel as if I am new, myself?
I will tell you a secret: I have been to Italy and Scotland, and love them for the same odd reason I love the Saucy Brit and her company. Everything is familiar, but is not...the houses are recognizable as houses, and the electrical outlets and bathrooms are obvious as to their functions, but the are all put together in a way that looks odd to an American.
Perhaps you have had this experience as well. It can be as simple as looking round for a door handle, and it's a foot lower or higher than our standardized housing requirements. Or several feet for that matter. Having to rethink opening a door is the closest thing to meeting an alien that I believe I will every experience...although I hope that they land on our planet in my lifetime...if it's good.
Today, the whirlwind of the past week's emotional experiences will start to settle. This is not to mention the change in physical surroundings. It snowed last week, and today is supposed to reach 90F. I will concentrate on trying not to, "I Should" on myself today. Because what follows "I Should" is always a judgement on myself.
I ask for the willingness to accept the experience of my emotions, without being quite so much at their mercy. I ask for the desire to stay sober today, without cutting. It is my most fervent wish to reach you today of all days...in my experience of being 'extra' human yesterday. I was more than enough human. I wish all of you the connection I felt, which kept me from floating to some underworld or above reality.
I will embrace my routine today. It's always dangerous to let it go. It is my foundation, the ground that I walk on. While exploring the emotions that have finally arrived with spring, and my birthday.
The birds have been up for hours, and the cats ask to go out earlier every day. The green and blue of the trees are changing; the yellow of the forsythia bursts out as a favorite memory comes out of it's pocket. I sit with Georgia, with her big, big eyes as she looks out. Some trees are still bare, some are wearing flowers, the green mist is coming. The slate walk is a lighter gray, and feels cool on the toes. One of the cats begs to come in, and then changes his mind when I open the door...that's the way he rolls at this time of year. He plays with Georgia through the door...
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