Reconciling Saints

Life is short, guys. Too short. I've had plenty of reminders of this in the past... few months? I mean, I always do, but...

There is not going to be any time later that's better to do x, y, or z. There's only now.

This might not necessarily be true, and yet it kind of is. What's so different from then... now? What will you learn? If anything, perhaps you should ask yourself, what won't you learn.

You won't until you do, so do it.

I'm writing a book. NOW. Right now. I keep thinking that this book idea I have is something I'll write later when I have a better idea for it, a clearer picture of it, have become a better writer. It's not gonna happen if I keep waiting, and really, what am I waiting for???? This is what I want to do, this is part of my passion. So I want to do what it is that I want to do, now. It seems to me the only time I really have is the present; everything else is merely borrowed, gambling on a future investment.

I've recently learned that I'm quite passionate about talking about mental health issues... specifically about bipolar disorder because that's what I know. It was devastating to me when I was diagnosed, and now I find that it's not so bad. Why is it that they make it sound so horrid, like all of a sudden you're one of the walking dead? Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!!!

Yes, there are meds. Yes, there are therapists, psychiatrists, and doctors. Yes, you have to relearn how to do certain things.

BUT! But you get to stop being totally out of control all the time, and you get to take a break from what you're used to that has gotten out of hand and is maybe no fun anymore. You get to learn new skills for life, and listen to yourself in a different way. This way, maybe after a while you don't need all the therapists, psychiatrists, and doctors, maybe you won't need all the meds. With these new skills - by learning your own tells, noises, and signs - you can start doing more on your own so that you're more like the you that you were used to, but smarter... and with mad skills, yo!

Bipolar really isn't so bad, and one can learn to live with it without ALL OF THE MEDS! and ALL OF THE DOCTORS, SHRINKS, AND THANGS! 

That is what I wish I knew in high school, and it's something that I wish I had found a book on at that age. I found so much understanding through my books, but I didn't find this. Don't worry, though, it's nothing that I knew to look for or even  knew I was missing. Still, I want to write the book I wish I had in high school, that book that opens my eyes and makes me feel that someone out there gets it, someone out there understands.

I want to let people know that I get it. Maybe it'll be one of the nieces or nephews, who knows! I want them to know that I get it, and I'm here to help them figure out the why and how of it, if only by leading by example.

So there's no time like right now! For me, because who knows! For them... the kids out there that I understand... because... well, also, who knows?! I'd like to give them a little more time if I can.

Now this, ladies and gentleman, is how an obituary should read and a funeral should go... well, the remembrance service part, anyway. There is one thing I'd change. As Tracy, Stephen and I have discussed, it's ridiculous to waste money on caskets and plots! Donate me to science... or maybe sell my body to science! I mean... who cares what happens to this shell anyway??? It's only going to decompose and it's not me!

Last night I dreamt of death.

I still had the taste on my tongue upon waking up a few moments ago and so sure was I of it that I wasn't scared and it just was the ever present fact.

I had been running away when I saw him approaching from a field towards the door I stood at of what I knew as my home. I tried to outrun her by taking off into the field, but even my neighbor who watched death approach me, told me I could not outrun him.

"He's right," said death calmly, still approaching me by only walking yet getting so much closer to my running self.

I gave in, allowing the inevitable to sink in. I let death touch me, overtake me and I sank down to the grass knowing that was all and that she was gone. I floated in a sort of half state both staring and walking around the things around my home.

I was dressed in Victorian garb and it all seemed so natural. I got up and walked around gardens and forests and thought, "I am dying; I am dead."

Then, as though allowed a short reprieve to get things in order, I was alive again, knowing that when they finally found that girl in the field, found my body, they would know that I was dead.

I went back to the door to my home and saw my family. I kissed my mother and I looked through my things, deciding what I wanted with me when I died. I pointed things out to my little brother that I wanted him to have or to remember about me. He who was a boy again in my dream and quite affectionate to me. I talked to my sister about the things that I especially liked about ornaments we had made. Oddly, my family in my dream was very creative. I don't mean that they aren't now... they are, they just do nothing with it. In my dream we created things, wrote songs and sang them, encouraged each other in our mediums of art. Basically we were everything we are underneath but nothing that we do in reality.

I remember thinking of my husband. I felt a tinge of sadness, but nothing more for I remembered the last cold sleepless nights where we may have shared a bed, but for little more than rest. I knew he would be ok. I looked through my things at our apartment, again more arts and crafts. I looked at the history I had written about Anne Shirley who, in my dream, had been a closeted lesbian but had died in her lovers' arms. I gave instruction to my sister... or perhaps it was a friend?... that it was as well written as it would be and completely comprehensive. I think it was Amander that I talked to later as to what I had found regarding her life; that she had left her husband and who her lover had been, how they met and how she had broken the heart of a scholar that was also doing research on her work/ writings who became enamoured by her and so had to leave his research unfinished because he didn't want her truth.

All the while I knew that the girl was in the field waiting to be found. The girl was no longer me, just my body, just the thing that would set off the beginning of my death.

I was scared a bit, wondering if perhaps I'd gone down that road too early, had chosen death before I should have. Nothing I could do about it, really, and in hindsight, there really had been no escape. I was excited about where this new adventure would lead but the fear always touched me because I had to go away from everything I had known and loved.

I was frantically going around trying to leave bits for the people I loved. This story here for so and so, that favorite collage there for another, etc., leaving pieces of me so everyone could remember me by and through these specific things know that I loved them and that I was ok. Everyone was thought of dearly in this time.

I wondered what would happen when they found me, saw them starting the events that would lead them to my body (which I knew would happen by the end of that night). I felt like I was peeking around a corner watching them, seeing what the reaction would be when they found me. I knew I couldn't see this and I knew that I wouldn't be able to, try as I might. I knew they would be horribly sad, but I was hoping to show them that I was happy and I had been ready.

I was hungry and I went in search of something I was craving. I don't remember what it was, but I remember having a bit of that before I wanted something else. Once I had the next thing I wanted a third and that's when I knew that it had begun. I was instinctively having a last super, you might say, eating bits of all my favorite things and not getting full. That was when I knew I had to find Stephen...

Then I woke up.

My first thoughts this morning were that death was with me and I had chosen it. My second thoughts were of how peaceful I felt and how I had never felt so sure of the beauty and creativity around me. My third thought was that I needed to tell Tracy my dream and ask her what the hell it meant. Next, I thought of all the things I had done in my dream (the songs, the crafts, the writing, etc.) and I thought that these were things that I needed to bring into the forefront of my life. Perhaps the death of the old me was a reminder that these are the things I'm destined to do in my life RIGHT NOW!

I got a sense that this author needed to leave her things that showed the people I love that I love them. My art is my gift to those I love, that is what will remain here to remind them.

Mainly, when I woke up dead this morning, I felt like an author who would go on to show the world posthumously all my great work... finally.