Reconciling Saints

Ten years ago I started this blog as The Bride. I started it because, despite it being my second marriage, I was going to have a wedding. Like... get-a-dress-and-book-the-reception-hall wedding. Never thought I'd do that. In fact, I never thought I'd be a bride in that sense, or a bride at all again after the first marriage. So the blog was to sort of chart my way through it.

Well, guess what? That marriage didn't last. Ten years together (funny, that), 2 of them married, and it didn't last. As the couples therapist put it, we all change every 5-7 years (give or take) and sometimes we don't change in the same ways. So that's what happened, the ex and I could no longer communicate; our boy and girl Legos no longer fit. The therapist pointed out that we had had a good run - 10 years was a good run, really. We just had to look at it as a new phase that we can't move forward to together. That actually made sense to me and still makes sense. We evolve and hopefully for the better. 5-7 years is forever for the person that you were at that time. So that's what happened to The Bride.


A little less than a year after I started The Bride (but before the end of the second marriage), I changed the name to its current one. I believe it was during the Exile that the blog changed... because times had changed. I was traveling a lot, I had gotten myself into a very sticky situation (that is quite the understatement), and I was moving from Long Beach, California to Portland, Oregon. Life was... everything. This was also pre-diagnosis so things were quite amped.

I wrote about dark times, wonderous wandering, new adventures, and interesting/exciting things.

Then... there was a long darkness. Then a mad shake up during the dissolution of my second marriage and moving across the country to Lexington, Kentucky.

Then... then... well, I guess I just didn't know what to do with this blog.

Now it's sort of where I post about Bipolar Disorder and other mental health stuff. Some of it has to do with the novel I'm writing and some of it has to do with writing about my own struggles in order to be honest and open with it. I try to advocate for the... destigmatization of mental illness. I mean... as I've often said, it shouldn't be any different than anything else that affects a person; heart condition, diabetes, etc. There are things in our bodies that don't always work like they should so we have to do things to make it right... or at least make it something that doesn't impede our living. You know?


I think it's necessary to write about my ups and downs with Bipolar Disorder. However, I really miss the adventurous, funny, and surreal life. Perhaps I need to get back to that because this... what's going on here in my head and having to put myself back into the Bipolar mode to write the main character in the book... it's not helping. I have to remember the words of Saul Bellow:

I just figured out that my little blog will be 7 years old in July! BOY does time fly when you're having fun... and living... and making a mess, but that's living. *shrugs*

Funny that!

We change every 5-7 years, and this blog is going to be changing right along with me, I guess. Who knew that my blog and I had synced up!? It's not that I have really changed so much as I feel the blog needs to focus on the things that I'm passionate about rather than just having it be my little soapbox/place to update the friends that are not so near anymore.

So this blog is going to be changing just a wee bit here in the coming weeks/months; I'm trying some new things due to ideas and feedback I got at the Books-In-Progress Conference I attended. Please bear with me while I try this new route.

Also, art!

I'm finding inspiration through art. Mostly that which people just like me make and some from the things I've talked to Tracy about.  Of course, there is also inspiration from professional pieces - photos, paintings, drawings, writing. I could get lost in it, save for the fact that it makes me lose focus and spins me out of me, making what I want to do seem elusive and otherworldly. Get me? The more I look at professional art, things by people who make money doing just that, the more it seems like it's something they do, something that I can't because, well... it's not part of my world. The thing I have to remember is that, well, it is part of my world! I can put it there.

I like art. It makes life beautiful and more fulfilling, I think. I need more of it in my world. So I figured, hell! I'll just make it 'cause... I can.

It's that time again. You know, that time when I look at my blog and I say, "Yeah, I gotta change this up a bit."

Except I'm not talking about just design, but it's a start and so I figured that's where I'd try to gather my inspiration... or at least it's a way to say that I actually did something. I went the easy route and decided that I'd throw in a template for now in an attempt to make change happen a little more rapidly. *shrugs* I like to think of it as the Bunsen burner for this solution (get it?!).

There's a lot changing and a few things that actually need to change (outside of the things changing... follow along, now!) and one of them happens to be how I use/ what I do with this little blog o'mine. I'm also trying to change my writing in that... well, I do more of it and perhaps actually get something of a routine in how often and when I write. Not doing so is driving me CRAZY!

Speaking of crazy, it seems I'm to go back on the meds. I knew it was only a matter of time before mom realized I was still outside and called me in to wash up before bed. Darn it! As the therapist said, I've had a nice little vacation, now let's get me back on something before the ground drops out from under me. Eh, things have been a bit fuzzy around the edges lately, so I guess that's about right.

Anyway, if the look of this place changes weekly, you know why. It's kinda hard to figure out what I want to do exactly and how to go about it. If you have any suggestions, I'm all ears! Unless, that is, you want me to sell something for you. Sorry.

In the mean time... I'll keep the midnight oil burning in my attempts to free the people (stories) trapped in my head.

I got this from Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Doll's Blog:

"Quincy Jones has started a petition to ask President-Elect Obama to appoint a Secretary of the Arts. While many other countries have had Ministers of Art or Culture for centuries, The United States has never created such a position. We in the arts need this and the country needs the arts—now more than ever. Please take a moment to sign this important petition and then pass it on to your friends and colleagues."

Go here to sign the petition:
http://tinyurl.com/55jl4l