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Day 52 Just Another Day


I haven’t written in a few day because I’ve physically been in chronic pain.  I have an issue with headaches and they are kicking my ass.  I’ve done most cursory exams and they’re not migraines, sinus, or cluster headaches.  I’ve had an MRI, CTScan, Lumbar puncture and blood work done.  Up next is an MRA (a picture of the blood vessels in my brain), a CTScan of my neck, an EEG and a memory test.  I’ve had this headache since June and it goes up and down the scale of pain.  When it stays around a 3 or 4 I can manage but when it starts to escalate, all bets are off.  Last night I didn’t get a wink of sleep.  My new doctor started me on a new med and I wonder if that is a side effect.  No sleep.  I can’t think of a worse side effect than that.

I like the idea of this blog, writing out the buzz I hear from the wiring in my brain.  Some of it has been dark, uncomfortable but it is really good.  I want to be a good person, er, I am a good person but I have had doubts over the years.  I’m working on a lot of personal bedevilments that have predisposed me to think less of my efforts and this writing has helped quite a bit.  It’s an action that is the result of the thoughts, the teachings, the therapy that I have practiced to get my shit together.  I’m blessed with bipolar disorder and that diagnosis has had a hand in a lot of suspense, theatre, drama and the like.  It’s like trying to paint a house with a water paint brush.  The color is nice but it takes a LOT of strokes to get it all done.  I’m grateful for it most of the time as it is a daily, daily reminder of the work I have to do just to get to normal.  There are moments that the effort is so tedious that I seriously question the overall worth.  Sometimes I think I’m the only one that is doing this stuff.  I don’t know the tedium that my fellow humans are going through.  It’s hard for me to break through my shell because of its delicate framework and see the struggles going on around me.  I go to a bipolar support group every week and we share a slice of ourselves to each other in a safe, caring environment.  So I do see it there and I do see such progress and hope in that circle of chairs.

Here’s a paragraph I found from one of my earlier stories, “In the secret place of my many imaginary deaths, I’ve always envisioned stars, lots of stars.  Tonight was a night of those stars.  Steely blue, antiseptically bright, painfully burning the corneas in my eyes.  Circling my vision, randomly shooting in different directions, sparkling profusely and quietly dazzling my momentary stupor.  Laying on my back I convulsed and tried desperately to choke and coax a small breath of air into my lungs.  The shirt and flesh of my chest was torn apart by the barbed wire strung just a bit higher than the fence that I had focused on.  The sling shot that was my body slamming to the ground knocked the night right out of me.  My fingers dug into the tarmac.  My only intent was the distant fascination that I was still alive.  I wanted to roar with oxygen, but I only whimpered and wheezed a minute stream of dawning fear.  Fear.  Fear brought me here.  Why?  Gravity seized my chest and I gasped, coughed and sputtered like an exploding flame.  Air!  Oh sweet, holy air!  Divine inspirations wracked my chest.  My feet slowly pounded the pavement one at a time in rhythm with my ragged breaths.  I could breathe.  I could finally breathe. Then the night clobbered me.  Fear brought me here! “
 
Yeah fear seems to be the thread of a lot of my stories.  Bred into me like breathing and beckons me to yield so often.  I’m tired of it.  I’m tired today.  I’m not going to drink a Monster today no matter what!  Try to keep my heart rate under 100 for one day.  I’ll just stilt one step at a time until tonight and I will sleep, oh yeah, I will sleep tonight.

1.      I’m grateful that I have such a cozy bed to just lay in and not move for 8 hours.

2.      I’m grateful that Betty, my cat, doesn’t mind my fidgeting when I can’t sleep.  She just sleeps through all the motion.

3.      I’m grateful that I will write anyway when I don’t have anything to write.  Thanks for reading!

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