when you're strange.

It's funny, this getting better. Feeling good vs. feeling like shit is a crap shoot nowadays, which is better than a sure thing, at least in this case.

The bad side. When I'm feeling good, and I'm ready to get out well...no one's there. Very few people have stuck by me through this mess. I don't blame them. I was (and maybe still am) boring and sad. The ones that remain, or jumped on board my screwed up bus in spite of it all are great. I appreciate every walk, every message, every invite, every word of encouragement. One way to find out who's going to back you up is to get really, really sick. The same way you find out that our medical culture is a complete sham.

Instead of being pissed off, I've been thinking about better days. Letting my mind wander to faraway places I've been, people I've met, and everything lovely about both. Then I flip it. I think warmly of the people I know now, and the places I manage to go without having panic attacks (ie: Target, the grocery store, once around the park by myself). I think, "What next," more often. I've been thinking about what I'll think about all of this when I'm 80, should I make it there. Is that too much? Starting several years ago, I began a harsh scrutiny of every bad quality I think I possess. So did a bunch of other people, including my co-workers, some of my friends, and once in a while, my family.

Starting this year, I put a conscious halt to it. I've made a lot of changes. I don't work as much as most people. I broke out of a potentially lucrative career that was breaking me. I worry more about having less money, in lieu of worrying about work and making a lot more of it. And honestly, it's the lesser of the two evils. I stopped caring what anyone thought about it. My dad, who hated this change at first, keeps telling me I seem better. More relaxed. Happier. He's right, because in spite of the alcoholism, he sometimes still is.

More lately, I've been wondering what wisdom will come when I'm so old and so much time has passed that everything painful is just a faint scar on the face of my and our earthly years. Part of me dreads the aging, and part of me looks forward to every coming day.

“Our lives are not as limited as we think they are; the world is a wonderfully weird place; consensual reality is significantly flawed; no institution can be trusted, but love does work; all things are possible; and we all could be happy and fulfilled if we only had the guts to be truly free and the wisdom to shrink our egos and quit taking ourselves so damn seriously.”
― Tom Robbins