Fits in the Night

Last night my brain decided that it was time to whirl again. After two months of constant stimulation I finally had some time to relax. I was away from people, in a familiar bed, in the quiet of a place that I know. It felt peaceful. Except the peace came with a price. The release stimulated a bit of mania. I use mania too loosely. My brain swims. It runs. It fucking gallops. Is it "mania?" Maybe. Whatever it was I was happy that it had waited until we were back in Istanbul, away from weddings and relatives and such, to surface.

I wasn't exactly amused by it. In fact, I was rather bored and irritated by it. I suppose that I should clarify what exactly "it" was, but it is rather hard to describe. As long as I was stimulated I was fine. I could watch a movie and everything would feel normal, except that I was very sleepy and did not want to watch a movie. Then, as soon as I turned off my computer and tried to go to sleep my brain would not let me. I was gripped with a sense of impending doom. Anxiety? I felt like there was something I had forgotten to do, something important that I had left unfinished. I have had to dot so many i's in the past couple of months that it is a fair feeling to have. But it was beyond a normal irritation gnawing at my brain. It was a fear that bounced around and sank into my heart. I thought that maybe I should stay awake and write. It has been awhile since I have done a night of writing, but really I wanted to sleep. So I watched a couple of episodes of Friends, took a melatonin, curled up against my husband and tried to sleep.

It took awhile for the melatonin to kick in, and in that 15 minutes I lay there thinking that I really should try to describe what was happening to me. I remember thinking that it was funny because I can always recognize it as my "manic stage," now, and I can know when it is coming and how it will feel and yet it always feels new and different and unexpected. I remember thinking that was very important and that I should remember it and explore the concept in the morning. It is morning now and I can't really understand why I thought any of that was important. It was only fits in the night. Nothing real. Nothing solid. Nothing. 

My Salvation

I used to be emo. Not simply emotional, but dramatic about it to the point that I could have cut off more than half the word and said it in a single exhaled monotone. I could have, if the word had been popular back in my day, but it wasn't, and so I didn't. I wasn't "goth." Well, not on any given day. There were twinges of black mesh, glitter, and leather collars that peppered my wardrobe, but it was not anything nearing a statement. I attended Paris, the RHPS. My friends were goth, for sure. I, as usual, kind of just was. I wasn't "was" in the apathetic way that most adults thought teenagers were. I "was" in a completely tender, overwhelmed, excited, bursting, awe-filled way that just forgot to conform to societal roles and labels. A little emo girl stuck in jeans and a t-shirt without any eye-liner. How tragic.

Looking back on my emo tendencies the event that rises as most potent took place when I was 20, living in Tucson. I was at a guy's house. I don't remember his name. Although he filled an interesting role in my pivoting life he, himself, wasn't particular important to me. I remember that he lived up north, off the freeway, in an apartment with a roommate. I don't remember how I met this guy, I don't remember how many times we hung out, or what we actually did. What I do remember, very clearly, was that his living room was dark. All the light was shut out even at mid day, and for some breakup, (his or mine, or maybe his roommate's) Evanescence, "My Imortal" was always playing in the background. Now, I still think that "My Imortal," is a great song. Beautiful voice, good composition etc. But back then I thought that it was more than great. I thought that it was IMPORTANT. I sat there, in that dark room that smelled of single boys, the three of us nursing broken hearts together, and I agreed that this song was the epiphany of the year. Even as I agreed I found it tediously overplayed by the boys, and I got up out of that room, into the bright sunlight and left. What I did later that day is a quite different story.

I have come a long way since thinking that Evanescence was IMPORTANT. I really thought that Istanbul was meant to be my salvation. I thought that I was destined to be dragged back into the divine comedy that is emo-land. I thought that I would tear and bleed, and rip at life.

Instead I made a choice. It was the best choice of my life. The drama is done, packed away for the days of nostalgic writing and moments of artistic inspiration. Instead I have bliss. Bliss and joy in many forms.

Forms of Bliss:
Running Bliss
Loving Bliss
Learning Bliss
Meditation Bliss
Religious contemplation Bliss
Swimming Bliss
Cooking Bliss
Eating Bliss
Sexual Bliss
Comfortable Bliss

Ahhhh... life is good. 

The Darkness

Every year my soul takes a vacation past the darkness. December the days grow shorter and the soul flees. I don't know where it goes, but go it does, somewhere far from me, and it leaves me as some sort of soulless zombie-child for a few weeks, when the days are shortest. I get cranky. I get sad. I have learned that the exhaustion will fade. The new year comes, a most melancholy holiday, and soon after that the days will start to grow longer. Spring will come and then, in a burst of suddenness, there will be summer. The days will be too long and I will feel too alive, and all will be as it should be, as we are told that we are supposed to feel as humans- happy, thankful, joyful. It is hard to be a human in the winter. A summer human, that is. But it is like the world wants to deny that winter is happening. With our heaters, and our false lighting, we claim to have captured summer year round. Be happy, they demand. I refuse, and my soul goes on vacation. For a few weeks, sometimes a couple of months, the depression of the winter settles in. It is not unbearable. I can handle it, quite well, after 30 years of practice. But the people around me seem to have a hard time of it. Come on, get happy, they whine at me. I refuse.
This year has been a little different. Having a lover stretched in bed beside me has kept my spirits up, or rather, down, nailed to me, here with me. It isn't that wee have been running around, hand in hand with a summer hunger, defying the winter. But he accepted my levels, and sunk into a lovely hibernation with me. It has been wonderful. Then, last night, he left. He is only gone for two weeks, and then we meet up again, in Bulgaria. (Oh, how I am petrified to return to Bulgaria!) But as soon as he left the darkness swept in around me. I took the metro to the bus, and waiting in the misty night I felt just how dark and cold it was. Only 7 in the evening and by the time I got home I wanted nothing more than to go to bed. Of course, I didn't. I stayed up and worked a bit on my final projects for the semester. I thought about him taking a bus up over the mountains, down by the sea, to a place that he calls home. No, he doesn't. He calls here, with me, home. I missed him, and my soul tugged itself away. Time for vacation, it said, and numbness settled in. Everything was settled, still.
People have this huge fear of needing others. Love yourself, they say. Be complete on your own, they demand. I am complete on my own. I am a whole person. But, honestly, I like my life better with him. I like waking up with him. I like eating with him. I like solving problems with him. I like walking home with him. I like grocery shopping with him. I like running with him. He is this constant friend, companion, love to me, always supportive and understanding and filled with secrets to discover. I love him. Need? It is a relative word, I think. I am perfectly capable of functioning without him. I can go to coffee shops and write this weekend. I can hang out with my friend next week. I can concentrate on school and clean my house. No, I do not need him, but I love having him in my life, every part, every second, every day.
I still wonder about how sudden our commitment to each other was. Really, within a month of meeting we were all-in, ready to spend the rest of our lives together. I try to remember why I used to think that commitment was such a difficult thing, why love was so hard to admit that sometimes I just ignored it altogether. I can't. With him love is so very easy. It pours out between us. Whispered admissions of love and desire and joy. Why would we ever hide these from another? Why would we ever reject these from another? Society has built a queer prison in which it keeps love and commitment as something sacred. I unlocked the cages and threw away the keys. No more, and enough is enough. I am ready to love, and so very happy that I have found a person brave enough to love, uninhibited, with me.