movement

Sometimes I miss the movement and noise of Chicago. The brightness of night. The invisible noise of darkness when not a person is seen but you can feel their ghosts shuffling around you. I miss falling asleep to the cacophony of no one.

A constant chatter as the city breathes for itself.

art

friends

the friendship game

i had a conversation with my friend steve yesterday, (as we were devouring burritos after a mad target run,) and we began talking about bipolar and relationships. now steve is bipolar too and while we only met last summer we have an affinity towards one another and a knowledge of each others struggles without even having to say a word. so we began talking and we went on about certain friends and major relationships in our lives. and i realized that i am still healing. 

three years ago i remember sitting on my couch in chicago crying with my roommate over lost relationships. prior to that conversation i had had dinner with my ex and the man who i still tell people saved my life. he and i talked about where i was in my life and how i was healing. and then he said he wanted his stuff back. now, i thought i had given all of his stuff back given that it had been about a year since the break up, but i suppose distance and time makes it easy to forget your own familiar possessions. so he wanted them back, the "stop making sense" dvd, the bob dylan cds, and the "speedology" book written by speed levitch. in this conversation he also gave back the love letters that i wrote him before i ever met him. they were the letters i wrote to the man that i would love forever, the man that would change my world and the meaning of love in my young eyes. and he did. and though our relationship is vastly different i will never argue my love for him. he will always hold that space in my heart. even josh knows this. but anyways, back to the story. he wanted his things back and he gave things back that were his and only his. and after the exchange took place and he left the apartment i fell apart. and then i cried on my roommates shoulder. i cried over the fact that it was my depression that prematurely ended our relationship and made it impossible to reunite. i cried because it was what i thought was my inability to truly love and have a healthy relationship because i was diagnosed as bipolar. 

i then thought about the rift between my childhood best friend and our broken relationship after a series of events that tore us apart as i spiraled around death and she ran to save herself. i cried and cried and told my roommate that i didn't think i was worth having as a friend, i didn't think that i was worth loving and that i was some diseased person that would only ruin lives and break hearts. and my roommate said that it wasn't true and she wouldn't leave me.

back in my conversation with steve i explained these things and went on to explain that it wasn't actually anyones fault. i told him how i have come to realize that i actually did the best i could and so did they. some people don't know how to handle times of trauma. i now know that i didn't know how to handle it and neither did they. we all just needed to ride the ride and then we all grew from there. i have now reconciled with my best friend and we are closer then we ever have been. i will always keep my ex-boyfriend in my life and though it might take him a long time to come to terms with everything that happened we will always hold a connection that few people can experience.

i then told steve about what seems to be my growing distance with my old roommate. the roommate that i cried to the night my relationships fell apart. i don't know if our new distance comes from our physical distance or our busy schedules, but i always find i hold a certain amount insecurity and fear. i am still recovering and still realizing that sometimes relationships are hard and terrifying, even when you are "normal" and not bipolar. some people float in and out of our lives, some people are like ghosts that appear when you least expect them then disappear, but some people find a place where they become a constant and a power that can never be lost in your mind. these are the good ones and the good ones always come back.

that terrible T word

television.

i have a confession to make: i have been worrying alot about the current season of 90210. now you see i am not a tv fan, and this is what bothers me. you see i happened to watch one or two episodes late at night when i was alone and had nothing better to do but eat some fatty food and be a closet television fiend and ever since then i have been worrying about them. there is this girl who is a drug addict who is now pregnant, and this other family who had this guy pop up and say he was a long lost son. its just all so hard sometimes.

so heres the dilemma: football seasons almost over which means the tv is going back in the closet. that is where it lives during the off season and i think after this whole conversion box thing it will live their indefinitely. so what do i do? do i admit my 90210 problem to josh and keep it out so that i can check on that pregnant chic? or should i just purge myself of the addiction and say goodbye to those cliche ever problematic children?

i don't know. its hard thing to do, but the first step is always to admit your problem. and in the long run, theres always the internet...

Waste...

(The first picture was Josh's idea and I feel I need to give credit to the true artist.)

Heroes

Its MLK day, and so I think it is important to speak a little about heroes. Heroes to me are people who are able to weather horrible tragedies and yet continue to lead. People who, though their heart may be breaking, are still able to inspire. People who are willing to put their own lives in harms way simply to show people that we must move on, we must move forward, we can move forward. Heroes to me are people like Mr. King, Ghandi, the 14th Dalai Lama, Desmund Tutu, and Nelson Mendela. These people are the ones who were there to lead people in times of extreme tragedy and trauma. These were people who remained steadfast to their cause and willing to risk everything just to help others move forward.

Last summer I was given the most amazing opportunity, I got to attend the Seeds of Compassion conference in which the Dalai Lama and dozens of others heroes, role models, and inspirations came together to talk about peace and compassion. I was lucky enough to attend the spirituality discussion where leaders of all different faiths came to talk about inter-spiritual dependence. There were many many amazing speakers at this event, but what stuck out to me the most was the interaction between Mr. Tutu and the Dalai Lama. Those two acted like Kindergarten best friends. They giggled and hit each other. They flowed gracefully between an eloquent serious answer and complete overflowing joy.

It is people like them that inspire me to go forward everyday.  Both men were put in leadership roles during horrific and painful acts of injustice in which their lives and those of their people were in great danger. As His Holiness was forced into exile, making him leave his people, country, and life behind, Tutu was dealing with the massacre that was South African apartheid. These men were the happiest people I have ever seen. They laughed and giggled and danced. They smiled and joked. And they demonstrated that they had survived. They lived through that cruelty. That pain. That fear. And they lead there people to peacefully and compassionately show resistance to the prejudice of the world. It is through heroes like these that we are reminded that no matter what happens in life, no matter how bad it gets, you can always move forward.

Now sometimes, no matter what things don't turn out the way the should. Sometimes our heroes are taken too soon, or our lives don't change fast enough. But in our honoring and still loving and cherishing the memory of Mr. King we remind each other that we can move forward, and that we are moving forward. I am so proud and happy that 41 years after the death of one of our greatest heroes we have moved to the point where we are finally okay letting a person of color lead us in one of our most important roles. Though I feel this has taken much much much longer then it should have, (and though I found myself in the past feeling that we are never going to get any better,) we are doing it. We are truly beginning to live the dream that was awakened in us so long ago. We are finally beginning to love and treat each other as we should. And tomorrow, in about eleven hours from now, lets hope that a new hero will lead us and shows us that we can move on. I hope that through our increasingly tolerance and love for each other that we can all come together in this new year to pass on the love and compassion that so many beautiful people have taught us in the past.

To see true inspiration and joy please watch this short clip of Desmond Tutu and the Dali Lama: 

"Desmond Tutu jokes with the Dalai Lama"

mexico

a found lost

i found a rather eerie picture of myself at 19. it appeared through an email from a past internet self.

i feel that the look in my eyes can only truly be described through part of Jane Kenyon's "Having it out with melancholy:"

 8  CREDO   

Pharmaceutical wonders are at work  

but I believe only in this moment  

of well-being. Unholy ghost, 

you are certain to come again.   

Coarse, mean, you'll put your feet  

on the coffee table, lean back,  

and turn me into someone who can't  

take the trouble to speak; someone  

who can't sleep, or who does nothing  

but sleep; can't read, or call  

for an appointment for help.   

There is nothing I can do  

against your coming.  

When I awake, I am still with thee.

today i remember that look, i remember that feeling, and even though it has been years since my last major bout of depression, i still find myself fearing the worst. i was always watching, waiting, and almost welcoming it back like an old friend. today however, i have come to realize that if it does return, i can handle it. i can get through it just like every other time. in the past i used to get paralyzed by my fear of its return and it wasn't until i began to trust the ebb and flow of life that i finally allowed myself to breathe.

my fish axel...

i liked what people used to do in the old days when they took pictures of the dead, so when my dear beloved axel passed i felt it right to preserve his memory through one last portrait.