This is a strange one.
To be talking about the gifts of bipolar I suppose.
It all began with a music video that went viral. Hi Ren by REN. It’s safe to say I’ve become a little bit obsessed about him and his story.
But at the end of the song, he talks to the camera. About the eternal dance between light and darkness. And how at first he cursed his clumsy feet, rigid that he was. Angry, frustrated he admits later in an interview.
But with age, and with time, he softened, and the dance grew easier.
And I guess this resonated with me.
In the last ten years, I have been hospitalized five times.
That takes a toll on a person, and especially the brain. The brain begins to turn to mania easily with each and every relapse as a go-to fight-or-flight response.
I am now on the most stringent course of medication I have ever been in my relatively young life. Although nearing forty, I suppose I am no longer young. Or all that young.
But I too have softened, and with that the dance has grown easier.
I have learned to be fully authentic in myself, unapologetically so. And I curate each and every aspect of my life as to how I want to be known, and the legacy, if any, I wish to leave behind.
I have also softened in my expectations of myself.
When it comes to my writing, I no longer crave to write the next great masterpiece.
Maybe one day.
Maybe I'll just leave that to Angela Carter.
But for now, I am content writing the romances that my publisher continues to be all too happy to accept.
They’re fun to write. And I like writing them. They're a welcome escape for me and hopefully my readers too. And as a wise friend once told me, with so much love as I have always had to give, it must surely be a perfect fit.
Through them I can live out moments in my life I wish I could have done differently. I even get to rage against the machine when at times in my own life, I haven’t been able to do that in my own past. Rewriting my personal history as it were and vicariously living through my characters.
Beyond that, quite simply, I just really enjoy writing them and while they may not win me a Pulitzer, maybe there is a stifled housewife out there, or a daydreamer in search of love, just another hopeless romantic like me who finds comfort in my words.
And I am mellowing. Gentler with myself.
There are days I can churn out twenty pages. And days I feel listless and lethargic and that’s okay too. Days I can barely write a page. But yeah, that's okay too.
I am learning to stick to the programme. Of course. And to stick to healthier habits. But also learning that there are no guarantees in life and to take what you can get and roll with it, a spontaneity returned that I have not known in myself for some time now. But slower, with ease.
I breathe. Deeply.
I accept the lulls, the depressions, just as winter sees the trees lose their leaves.
And I welcome the joys of warm summer days when they dawn to greet me.
I have come too to appreciate nature in all her splendour.
In my mania, I have seen untold wonders in the natural world, and they have left me changed forever.
I now wish to know more. They Latin names of plants, their etymologies, their symbolisms, their mythologies. A newfound love has found me. And I am ready to accept its calling.
I have even come to love weeds. The cheerful dandelion for which I have a recipe for mead. The stinging nettle for a warm brew or a pesto. (But be careful to cook with them when they are flowering as they are then toxic.) The delightful clover which adds nutrients to the soil and makes for a wonderful companion plant. So very delightful.
I no longer feel like I have to fervently pursue one singular journey in my life and make a grand success of it. The pressure is gone from me.
In my potential move to London I look forward to courses at Kew Gardens and hopefully to find employment in a plant nursery some days and at best, a second hand bookshop others while I continue to blog and write whatever tickles my fancy at the time. I just want to write and other days to be surrounded by plants or books. It's as simple as that really.
But time will tell. And truly, I crave the humble life.
Maybe a plot of my own one day I can tend to, but who knows?
I’ll take humble for now.
All the while, and so very vividly I still recall an old saying I picked out in an Occupational Therapy Session. We had to choose a quote from a series of quotes and colour and decorate it. I chose an old Japanese proverb, ‘Fall down 8 times, get up 9.’
And throughout all my trials and tribulations there has been an ever-growing resilience to me.
Of course, I still grieve for the sorrows of this world. I am soft like that. Easily teary eyed and A Streetcar Named Desire never fails to make me weep uncontrollably, each and every time I revisit it.
But still, for all I am maybe quieter, for all I am maybe softer still, for all I wish to tread delicately on this earth, there is a resilience now in me that runs deep.
And these are the gifts of my bipolar.
Pink Tulip by Georgia O' Keefe
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