The Runner

I have a rule:

I exercise the dog at least an hour six days a week, unless I'm in pain or running a fever, which means I hike trails or I walk along the road just outside the apple farm where I live to keep in shape and get the dog out of her pen.

He runs--he runs like a Thoroughbred on a flat track.

I see him a few days a week on one of the trails I visit. He usually says "hi" as he flies past me.

We parked next to each other one day, at the start of the hike. There he was, changing his clothes with just a towel around his waist.

I couldn't help but stare at him, wondering in fascination and horror if he was going to accidentally drop the towel.

Instead of letting the moment go by awkwardly, he asked about Beck. Is she a Doberman? 

Yes. 

She's very beautiful. It seemed like she wanted to go with me when I went by you.

Yes. How long did you run? About two hours right?

Yeah, I ran to Costco. It was about eleven miles. 

He has dark, slightly curly hair, clinging to the sides of his face from sweat. 

A Confession

I am convinced that my writing would be better if I was off of all my meds, and that fact has led me to believe that all my writing on the meds is shit.

That fact is a little voice in my head sing-songing as I'm trying to write while on the Topamax, lithium and clozapine.

Mostly, I blame this on the clozapine and the Topamax, although you could throw in--fuck it! Blame the lithium as well.

I don't like any of my recent writing--matter of fact, I like the shit I wrote while I was psychotic better. Even if it didn't make sense, it had its own music. You can't help but love people who dance in the street to their own music--I was that person. Raving. Scary. But there was at least music.

I wonder if there will always be some cosmic trade off. Will I have to hide myself in some apartment, strip away all the medications, the doctors, sit at the computer and wait for the craziness to come out before I could ever publish a book?

And then, worse, I think, is it all really the same? The quality equal, but I just can't see it because I hate the medications so much?

Fuck. 

Madness Becoming

"To this day, I still have a fear of the shower room at H2, being locked in, all alone, waiting for Nora to manifest right there before me—there’s a boogie man hiding in the closet, and Mommy is nowhere to be found to make it okay."

--"Madness Becoming," an essay I wrote for my Math 265A class

Bartering

I was all snuggled up in a blanket on the coach, slowly drifting into sleep when my phone beeped. I mean, how many people would you leave your comfy bed for in the middle of the night to go bang?

I barely remember him. That is the sad trade off. IF you want the pain to dissipate over time, the healing to begin--you barter your memories. They are not as vivid, they are not as frequent. They slip away into the corners of your mind. It is a part of the death you experience.

I want to remember him of how he was. The night he called me up and told me he'd never stop fighting for me. The glass of Pinot in his hand when he looked down and said he loved me for the first time.

I am standing at a cross road. I know if I see him again--I will make new memories. But I mourn what was--back when I believed we would be together someday.

Stop

"I've always said I sought out the things I feared in order to conquer them. My greatest adult fear is and always has been that I could try to stop drinking and fail."



--Life in the Age of Byrony, entry: In the Land of Gods and Monsters

The Little Boy and the Big, Bad Wolf

My grandma drove over from the desert to Yuppieville so she could go to her doctor's appointment.

She arrived late in the evening, and sat down on the couch. She started to talk about her drive, and then finally said, "I want to kill myself."

I gave a scripted answer. "I think you should see a doctor for your depression."

"No, it's I don't want to drive back and forth anymore. It's a two hundred mile trip. I want to find doctors in [her hometown]."

I let the subject drop. I didn't know what to do except call county's mobile crisis.

I called my mother the next morning while I was walking the dog, so I could have some privacy, and I told her what grandmother said.

"If you turn her in, she will never forgive you, at least not for years," my mother warned me. "Spend some time with her, ask her questions, play amateur psychiatrist and see how she's doing. "

I was with her all day, looking for clues into her mood. She seemed her usual self. That's no way to determine suicidality. SEverely suicidal people fool their family members all the time. Finally, while we were riding in the SUV, I asked her, "Did you mean it when you said you wanted to kill yourself?"

"No...I'm not the type of person who commits suicide."

"Don't you ever do that again," I said.

"Why are you so adamant about it?"

I don't remember the response I gave her, but I was silently pissed.

"They tried to make me go to rehab...I said, 'No, no...' "

--"Rehab" by Amy Winehouse

"So, you and Dad have cocktail hour, huh?" My therapist says and softly laughs.