There are always changes. For the past week, I've been on top of things. I've finished some important training at work. I gave valuable insight to our IT guy at work regarding some issues. At church, I helped a young woman recognize what she needed to do to be happy..er. I read my scriptures. I exercised. I ate less. I lost 8 pounds. I looked at the sky and was thankful for it. I looked at the mountains, hills, deserts, and sagebrush and was astounded at them.
Last night, I watched Biggest Loser all alone in the dark and cried at their struggles (yes, I did). I was moved by Anton. What am I saying? Anton moved the gym ten feet. I felt great.
Today at work, I worked had and helped fire fighters at the BLM and NFS prepare to light and control some large controlled burns over thousands of acres. I counseled a downhearted staff member and helped him rise.
I was thrilled that Cindy's surgery went well and that she feels better. That answers my prayers and I love her.
I prayed for my daughters and their husbands and children.
Tonight, I fell. I could feel it coming. I can always tell when "The Swing" is coming. You know when you were a kid and were swinging as high as you could go so you could set the record? When you go back and reach the end you feel a bit weightless and it makes your stomach fly just a little, suddenly you feel yourself start to fall.
At first, it's subtle, you are no longer weightless, but you only weight a few ounces. You are still flying. But soon you pick up speed and before you know it, you hit the bottom of your swing and you weight a million pounds and your stomach just drops out your feet. Your head is heavy and your heart struggles to beat at all. All you can do is hold on and try not to fall out of the swing into the mud and make a fool of yourself.
That is me today. I am falling. I am starting to weigh hundreds of pounds. All I can do is anticipate the free fall and hold on. I must concentrate on my grip and not let go. I can't look to the left or the right, only straight ahead. All I see is mud rushing up at me. I feel I want to drag my feet to stop the swing, but I know that will only make me fall out of the swing and bury my face in the mud. I may not recover from that.
So, once again, I swing down into panic and despair and feel a hot dirty sweaty wind in my face.
I know, from the experience of years, that I will hit bottom sooner or later, whether tomorrow or next week or next month, and the suddenly I will start to move up again.
At the nadir of my downswing, I will weigh a million pounds and will struggle to breathe, think, and my frozen cramped knuckles will be white with desperation and exhaustion. I will get up for work, I will go to church. I will prepare for my next round of midnight shifts. I will...will myself to will myself.
(I know, further, that I am going down, because I am listening to iTunes right now and I am choosing trance music by Armin Van Buuren and other alternative stuff by Bat for Lashes and Blue October. I do not want funny songs by Austin Lounge Lizards. Off putting.)
After spending a length of time at the nadir, over which I have no control, I will suddenly begin to swing up. On a swing, you remember that you will begin to weigh less and you will kick your legs out and throw your torso back, because somehow human beings KNOW that that is how you go higher on a swing when you move forward. It's genetic. Kids will figure it out, given enough time.
As you go up, you will progressively weigh less and less until you reach the top again. At this point, your view seems unobstructed. You see no mud, you see the sky, the clouds, the grass, your friends and family, and there is NOTHING that can stop your climb. You straighten your body out like an arrow and soar.
When you reach the zenith of your flight, you weight absolutely nothing. There is nothing to fear. You are confident and unafraid. The wind on the way up smells of summer mountain air and it blows in your face but does not dry out your eyes. It only freshens your senses. It fills every cell of your body and makes every hair stand up and dance. You can close your eyes and see eternity.
But it doesn't last long. You know you will start backwards. This is the worst part of the swing. You can't see, but you know there is mud behind you. You thrust your body forward in a desperate effort stop the free fall toward the mud, but you can't and you know it. You take a last, longing gaze at the sky, the grass, the summer, your family, and friends and bid them farewell.
Part of you knows that this is a cycle, a nightmare you are fated to repeat over and over, and you know that only death will bring the end of it. Because, after all, spirits do not have chemical imbalance, nor do resurrected beings. But part of you fights against the cycle, refusing to believe it can happen AGAIN AND AGAIN. Surely, there must be a way out of this Twilight Zone?
But despite all your experience, you can't jump off the swing into the mud. That is not an option. That is the cowardly way out. That is for quitters, even though you know you have never finished anything in your life, except going through this cycle, pushing your own Sisyphus rock up that hill time and again. That is the only thing you have truly mastered in your pathetic life. One thing to look back on to say, "I did this. I survived." But swinging backward, terrified of the mud and with your back to the monsters you know are there but you can't fight, you wonder if it will be "enough". Of course, nothing we do is enough. So we are taught.
The only real option you have, other than, kicking and leaning, is to just let the swing naturally wind down. But that means, through entropy, it will eventually lose energy and end up at the bottom of the cycle and stay there, hanging above the mud forever, or as long as the chains will hold you up. You can begin to kick again and every child knows that if you kick hard enough and long enough, if you flail and thrash, you might get going again, if you can find the natural rhythm of the pendulum that are your emotions.
You likely will not have the energy to ever accomplish that. Not at The Bottom. The Bottom is bad. It is dark. And you are alone. Nobody can push you out. Perhaps they could before, but they don't have the energy for that, anymore, either.
So you just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, without really having a destination. If you stop, you fall. But if you exert all your energy, everything you have, you will never ever leave that swing. You are trapped on the Bipolar Ride.
Justin Furstenfeld, lead singer and writer for the alternative band "Blue October", who is also bipolar said about people who say that his lyrics have helped them, "If I have saved others, I don't know what to say. But if I can do that for them, why...can't I do that for myself?"
