Wake Me Up When September Ends

Seriously. I mean that. Wake me up when September ends and things go back to normal. Wake me up when I am me again and I am back in Kansas. Wake me up when time passes at a normal pace and I can think about the future again. Wake me up when I can stop seizing every moment that I feel good and be compelled to be as productive as possible with it. Wake me up when I stop having debilitating relapses that force me to drop off the face of the earth and scare me into thinking its the end of me. But it's not September anymore. It's November. Thanksgiving is next Thursday. Ain't that a bitch. How the hell did that happen? Everyone is saying it. It's not just me. It's partly the unseasonably warm fall we're having. It's partly because people always say that, every year. For me it's different this year. I have literally been in the same place since August. I have been in the middle of one experience, a single existence, a very long moment. So for it to be Thanksgiving is very strange indeed. It should still be August.

I am not alone in this. People are reacting to me differently. This is not in my head. I don't define myself by how others perceive me but I do find it compelling that others' reactions to me and reflections of me are different than they used to be. I think that proves that I am not in this bizarro world alone. It isn't just in my head. It's real. My doctor told my sister that I am 'stoic,' a word that has never been used to describe me. I am used to being fun or irreverant, but never stoic. My friend Twinkle told me that she needs a glass of whiskey to read this blog and even then she can only skim it because it's depressing, again, I was always the carefree one, definitely not depressing. And I don't want to be perceived as such. I am not depressing. My cousin K told me that the blog "oozes with sadness." Gawd. Really? Katri wrote, "Your blog is so honest and genuine and so totally unselfconscious that I felt a little bit guilty - like when you accidentally overhear a stranger's conversation with their lover. SO strong - I had no idea what you were really going through until I read your blog - and you made a decision to throw off all that anger and fear and you did it and were happy and radiant and so full of love..." Full of love is definitely not something I have ever been accused of. LG wrote, "your blog reminds me of a poem someone read to me 6 years ago...I found a link to it: http://www.native-americans.net/theinvitation.htm" Read the poem. The comparison of that to me left me speechless and moved. Is that all me? It never has been. I am so confused. What about the old me and her characteristics? Where do they fit in?

At work I am partly perceived the way I always have been. It is apparent to all that I don't take work very seriously. Whenever I come in dragging my feet it is assumed I am hungover, which used to be true and still comes through in how others see me. I like that. Meanwhile, it isn't true anymore so it kind of trips me out and keeps me in this weird place of who the hell am I and what the fuck is going on. I just want to world to stop moving so I can jump off and land somewhere and settle into my life and who I am and what I can and can't do. Limbo isn't something that I like. Not that I don't want to take some of the lessons I have learned. Not that I want to go back to who I was before and erase all of this. But I just want to stand on steady ground and have a little more control. To not even know who I am and what I am capable of because it changes every day is a very unnerving feeling. Now, today, I am alright and I wonder if this is how schizophrenics feel when they are in their dominant personality. Relieved - but fearful that at any moment, they will be gone and anything can happen. They can fuck up their life, their job, their relationships when the other personalities take over. And that is kind of how I feel. Scared that the sick me who can't get out of bed or maintain her life will just fuck it all up. And I will get better and have nothing. Then who will I be? Ha.