the way it was
Tag: Frustration
…something
i look into your face
there is no trace
of recognition
in your eyes
and i don’t know
what gets me worse,
that you don’t know me
or how cliche
that first stanza sounds
getting right down to
the meat of the matter
we are living our lives
full of parting shots
and one-offs
no conversations had,
words left dangling,
left wondering,
as if a complete exchange
would signify,
i don’t know…
something
glb /// “…something”
Causation 1
Thinking on it, my brain says, “you got out of that pretty easily”. Then I get standoffish (to my own mind) “what the hell are you talking about?” Surely, he couldn’t be talking about cancer. We* chose invasive surgery over chemo and even with the enormous physical cost to me, all the margins were clean and I did not need to have chemo or radiation treatments. I just needed to heal. It was only a short while before I could get back to work, and another before I resumed somewhat normal daily activities.
I know that my experience has been different than many, many others. I consider myself extremely fortunate. But, my opinion is completely different than that . I got through it, yes. I’m still alive today, yes. I still have pain in the area of the surgery. I think what I “suffer form” now is remorse that I beat that thing, and in a smaller amount of time.
After that period of recovery I started treatment for depression. It was 19 years later that I was diagnosed with Bipolar II Disorder (BPD). So, I am frequently pushing it around my head. Did the cancer cause BPD? There is, of course, not any way to know. There have been some experiences in my life that make me think that BPD has likely been with me for a long time. I know that the diagnosis was later in life for me. There are, however, some things that happened in the years leading up to the diagnosis that might be seen as evidence of BPD. So here’s the question I’ve been asking for a while.
Can a trauma cause BPD, or any other disorder or mental issue?
*We is actually my father. He’s the one who, while I was under, communicated with the surgeon and decided to go the aggressive route. Keep going until the margins are clean. Virtually ensuring that chemo and radiation would not be necessary.
weather
I am raked across the pit, but I’m not burning. This fire has gone out, no one has tended to it for a long while. I am left to grapple with the hardened logs where my fire used to exist. They only scrape and char with every hand hold I try to get. Barking out the dust with every breath, stretching and straining against the dark. I can see where I need to go, it’s getting there that provides the pain.
I seem to find myself here, or someplace close to here when it happens. I seem to find a way out every time. It’s different every time. But I don’t expect to win, every time, any hope I have is dashed against something ominous. I can’t tell myself that it will pass, that only serves to make it worse, longer or darker or both.
So, I wait. I weather and wait. Learning more every time. Not quite getting it, until I do. And that is where everything comes together or comes apart.
Now I am just rambling and wavering and I should stop.
It’s just not as easy as “pulling yourself up and soldiering on”
EXCUSES
It’s not about excuses. No doubt, I struggle, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. There are things I can point to, of course. But given all the experience I’ve had, I find myself worried at times. I don’t always recognize what’s going on, especially where Bipolar depression is involved. I’m not trying to define what it is. I’m just hoping to understand what it is in me. I can say that I feel as if I am surviving but I can also say that I wish surviving was better than it is.
lessened
who has the space to carry other people’s choices
i have them violently spinning around my head
in opposition to my own private gyroscope
i perceive them as more important
i let them push their way in and as mine go crashing out
i am diminished, even as i am trying to convince myself
that i am somehow more because i am allowing myself
to be lessened
glb /// “lessened”
quartered
hanging on to something i do not need
slashes my palms
tears at my fingers
destroys my ability to put you behind me,
i am drawn,
though i am quartered,
every ounce of me
reaching out for you,
praying for some respite,
hoping for something from you
to ease my suffering
glb /// “quartered”
experiment
i am an experiment
for your learned
advances
my open vein your
test tube
the promised
possibilites
more than i can
resist
resetting my
expectations
i return with
hope floating
through my being
hoping
hoping for
hoping for something
hoping for something
different
glb /// “experiment”
going-sideways.com original
a conversation of sorts
i shake my head
with great fury
trying to get
your voice
out of it
no use,
so i raise my chin
and prepare
for whatever
is to come next
i cannot see any
action for all the
faith i have in you
but i still believe
we will come to a point
where what we say
is what we mean
and that will be
a tragedy
when we realize
how little there is
to say
when we finally
arrive at it
glb /// “a conversation of sorts”
originally published 07/27/2014
a glint of red
a glint of red moving across my mind,
want to chase it to see what it means,
but i don’t, my curiosity is strapped to
this rock of guilt and restraint, do you
remember what happened last time?
i am stuck in the muck that i exude,
it keeps me here, where i am safe
from things that only i can see or hear
you in your red coat stop by from time
to time, you tell me how busy your life is
without asking about mine, with the assumption
that it is an excuse for why i don’t see you
that often and that my silence is an
endorsement of how small my life is
glb /// “a glint of red”
going-sideways.com original
going sideways 