What Is The What

1 Mr. Curry and I saw The Master a few weeks ago and I was very disappointed. The first half rises and you are absorbed with the beautiful acting and a curiosity of what is to come; the second half deflates and meanders and bores. The saying ' People remember not what you did but how you made them feel ' applies to movies, and this movie didn't make me feel much, and ultimately left no imprint. I haven't had a ghost of the movie following me afterward, a sure sign that the artistic risks in this film did not ultimately play out. Acting:10 Movie: 4

2 I have been depressed to some degree or another, coming and going, since Ever's birth, which is typical of me. I do this every child, every time, and grow slowly out of it until it is gone by the time they are two and half or so. But the last few days have been brutal. When it hits this hard, writing can either be effortless or extremely frustrating, which is when lists come in handy. I can make lists. I am doing what I need to do to help myself. Sometimes everything is too hard all at once and the Universe lines up just so and Spock lays his long cold finger right on your pulse and you go limp. I surrender. I surrender to the feelings of deep sadness and loss sweeping over me. Meanwhile I can still laugh at Ever's antics or feel a burst of clear clean love for Ian so I know I will be all right. The tears come and I let them. 

3 I miss my sister profoundly. Lura. Words fail.

4 I miss my husband. I fucking hate bipolar with a passion. I hope this will help me not hate my husband. We have been married almost ten years and I don't have all the answers and sometimes I am weak. I'm not an expert and I'm certainly not 'detached' and I can't see where he is and where the disease is right now. Which is which? What is the what, Dave Eggers, WHAT IS THE WHAT? When we are both struggling, the marriage rocks to and fro like a boat lost at sea, with four children in the cabin. I think every moment of those four children. I think every moment of my purpose in life. To expand toward love, to move away from self-pity and toward acceptance ( acceptance of everything, of the ravages of death to the push pin you step on in the dark to the weather to the unknown that cannot be known ) to always live in the light of honesty, to be brave when I am afraid, to be good when I want to be cruel, to be patient when I am filled with a panicked urgency to fix, fix, fix. This of all things is usually the hardest for me. I am of action. I like to fix. I felt unfixable and in pain for all my childhood and as an adult it has been one of the greatest joys to realize that there are so many solutions. When I cannot immediately identify a tidy solution I feel panicked. When I cannot afford a solution I feel depressed. We need therapy so badly and every time I read another book or website or account that tells me how crucial therapy is in a successful treatment of bipolar I want to scream. If I sold this computer I was given I could afford a lot of therapy. I also could not do what I do though. Write all this out. Write my columns. Push my writing forward. Make connections. Read websites about bipolar. 

5 When you are the mother and there are four children and you live in a small house and everyone is always at  your hip or popping up to need something even at eleven pm then they are going to see you crying. I tried the closet a few weeks ago but Dakota opened the closet door and asked me what I was doing. CRYING IN THE FUCKING CLOSET WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE I"M DOING?!!
I didn't say that. Instead I sighed the deep and accepting sigh of a mother and stood up.