When I watched a film and it was about truly experiencing the city of New York, as a local, without the cliché bullsh*t of overpriced consumerism, I realized, "Hey, I've been there..."
I got to know a little bit of what that's like, to live there, to see those sights every day, and to have those sensations in my heart...
And that's what life is all about... Where you've been; about experiencing things. Laughing and crying; losing it all, and growing again. People say you should never feel comfortable; that life is a never-ending growth process... That you should always challenge yourself.
I write because my 2 years away from ProgressiveU did not bring me any closer to writing witty political and social observations... But I have gotten a bit of an education about politics, how it affects things, and people and society… Mainly through experiencing more in life. I learned a little more than that about life, like what co-dependency means; how to overcome depression and bipolar disorder. I’ve learned there’s so much more to go, and a lot left for me to do, as scared and unwilling as I have always been. I thought very deeply about why I would continue to write here... I do have something to say about rebuilding life.
Some people, who are like me, live in personal hells of their own regret.
One thing I’m learning as I start over, after having lived some distinct phases in my life, and reaching that crux; that turning point of the mid-twenties age, and just having discovered the patterns that indeed prove that I, and my family, and most of my friends HAVE been bipolar, is that life is a parade of phases. It’s a series of moments, and you should never hang onto any one chapter too long, but instead (a cliché that depressed people don’t tend to learn or practice) truly appreciate those phases for what they brought to your life…
Had I never clung too deeply to an abusive partner, I might never have enjoyed the little joys of New York, where I went with him to live.
If I had never left him, I would have never discovered how much I was selling myself short, and how much of my personality that I was shoving into a little drawer, locking away, and throwing out the key.
And if my grief from this had never led me to run away with a serviceman into the affluent countryside of Jersey, I never would have had those cozy feelings of home; what a less dramatic family feels like (although they had some hard, set-in-their ways, Protestant, militant viewpoints of their own…). I have wonderful memories of our time together, even our last night as a “couple.” Although, what that really was, was some dude saving me… Not couplehood. It was a stop on my journey. I never would’ve checked into a hospital.
I would’ve lived in an escapist, destructive mindset forever… With no regards to money, personal health, responsibility; even to continue habitual hard drug use.
And I’m here now. I’m back in school. And I’m truly examining what couples do when it just DOESN’T work and is not healthy anymore. As my grief heals and I’m seeing my path more clearly, in the 5 months since I’ve reunited with my parents, I’m now paying attention to what couples act like when it truly IS working. No tension. No trying. No emptiness, or awkwardness or dependency.
We don’t “need” this. We WANT this because it makes us happy. It does not hold us back. It is not a burden.
More importantly, I’m starting to see, in the peacemaking with my family, that love is a drug like anything else. For this reason, I must lift myself up when I’m having a bad spell. It wouldn’t have been right to feel like a displaced orphan all the days of my life, and to have all these terrible feelings to run away from… As I made plans to have a career, be a mother; be unlike my own parents, and have a HEALTHY marriage…
