Dating & a 646 pound catfish

I am feeling a little better…or good enough to know that I cant stay here alone at night. Last night and tonight I went and visited with my grandparents, I’m just getting home and its about 11:30….thats good. If I keep myself busy from 7pm-midnight I stand a pretty good chance of being ok. At least now I have enough energy to know I need to get out and do something….thats good.

I met a guy. We are going out Friday night to see Batman. (YES – Me…Jil…going on a date…you didn’t read that wrong). We talked for a long time tonight. He’s really nice. He said one thing that he likes about me is that I’m not “traditional”…not sure what that means, but I think he meant it as a compliment. I am pretty far from traditional I guess. I told him tonight that my longest relationship was with a female and that didn’t phase him at all, which was a bit of a shock & definitely a relief. Anyway, I have no expectations…I just think it will be nice to have someone to do something with…it makes me alittle nervous…but good nervous, I guess.

That brings me to the topic of dating and being bipolar. I didn’t drop that bombshell on him…I thought the lesbian thing was enough for one conversation  When is an appropriate time in a relationship to say “by the way, I have a chemical imbalance”?!?! I’m not planning on sharing that information too soon, but, like I told him tonight, I don’t like feeling like I’m hiding something from someone in a relationship…whether it’s a friendship or whatever…I have to be who I am ..I feel like hiding these things is a form of dishonesty & I’m a TERRIBLE liar. The timing is a hard thing to gauge….and then you never know what kind of response you may get. I haven’t dated in a long time, so I haven’t had the experience of having to figure this stuff out.

Honestly, meeting him and talking to him has done a lot for my self esteem…whether it pans out or not. I think I get into the phase of I AM bipolar instead of I HAVE bipolar (calm down you bipolar folk) and I feel like I have a defect….but hey, I thought the lesbian thing was a flaw too and he took that rather well. Anyway, this event has given me something to look forward to. I’m glad that I’m feeling alittle better…not too sure that I am in the most pristine state of mind, but I’m coming out of the shadows alittle at a time and I guess that’s all I can hope for.

Ok, I have to ask, did anyone see the picture of the 646 pound catfish? Holy shit, that blew my mind. See, Steve, you aren’t the only one with random thoughts…and by your request, I’m working on a couple of poems that I have started and never finished so there should be a couple posted pretty soon.  I’m off to attempt to sleep.

Auditory Hallucinations & a Canine in a Car

I overslept this morning...bigtime. I got to work around 11:30, not a good way to start a week. I just kind of existed at work and came home and slept on the couch until about 8...which is usually when everything goes to hell. I called a friend. It was good to talk to someone...that always helps me.

Later in the evening I got some weird notion that Marley and I should go for a ride. Now, Marley hasnt ridden in a car since she was a pup and about 30 pounds lighter. Needless to say, it was interesting...but it was kinda funny and made me smile, which hasnt happened often lately. She got my eye in one of her flailing fits in the front seat...it doesnt feel too great...but I think she had fun, she likes watching cars pass us. She made me feel better and made me remember that she's be sad if I wasnt around.

Ok, this is weird...Ive been hearing music in my head today...like carousel music?...its like I have my own weird soundtrack...why it reminds me of riding on a carousel I can not say, but its weird. Its not the first time that Ive heard music, but usually its like banjo music, seriously, I know that sounds pretty out there, but its true. I dont hear it all the time, just in spurts.

Im not wanting to hurt myself, so maybe theres a spark of hope coming back. I certainly hope so.

Sunday nite blues

Well, meds still haven’t kicked in. I took an extra zyprexa tonight because I was becoming scared of myself again. I don’t know if it helped…Im not sleepy anyway, but I’m also not hanging in my closet or drooling from taking a bottle of Excedrin (which is all I have, Im not sure if it would work, but it might if I took it with the rest of my zyprexa?) But – I’m making it. I had a pretty good afternoon. I visited with my grandparents and my brother. I got in the pool for a little while and I felt better. My brother is so funny, most of the time he’s the only reason I make it through this junk. Today was his birthday. His cds had been stolen out of his truck, so I bought him a new cd case and tried to burn all of his cds for him to fill it up. I thought about him as I was inspecting the medicines I have…and I quit looking. I seem to just go downhill about 8 pm. This has been the worst weekend I can remember as far as my moods go. Saturday was awful….the whole day. Tonight is bad, but not as bad as Saturday. My legs hurt where I burned them. I cant walk without the burns rubbing on my pants. I haven’t done anything that stupid tonight, but Ive thought about it. I wish the Effexor would kick in. I just cant seem to shake off this darkness. I don’t want to leave the house, I don’t want to be around people, I only feel safe under my covers. I can tell I have weird energy since the Effexor was upped, but its not good energy….it may have nothing to do with the meds, I don’t know. Man, I don’t know how much longer I can take this. I would go inpatient if it wasn’t so expensive…its like $1000 a day, not counting the doctor visits. I cant afford that. I’d be paying for it forever…and the thought of that depresses me more. Im not sure it would help anyway. Talking doesn’t help. I have nothing to talk about. I just cant stand myself because I feel like this…that’s my only issue at the moment. I don’t know what to do really. Im just hoping that someday soon I’ll wake up without this dark cloud following me.

Sat. nite

I’ve forgotten why I write here. It doesn’t make sense. I think at first I thought maybe I could help someone else….be someone that another person could relate to. It seems like its become nothing more than a memoir of madness, a journal of my descent. My head hurts. I think it’s the meds. They always make me sick when there is some change. I burned because I thought it would make my head stop hurting….it did for a whole half hour. Now I just have more pain…not smart. My brothers birthday is tomorrow. That’s the only thing that’s kept me hanging on today. I think the meds have given me a weird sort of energy…a pissed off energy…energy to hurt myself…not good. I don’t think Im going to be able to sleep. Im ready for this crap to stop.

Another Night

UUUgggghhh, still here. The past couple of days have sucked bigtime. I got up the nerve to call the doc to tell them I feel like shit & they just send me to be evaluated to see if I need to be inpatient. That’s always a boat load of fun. They always ask the dumbest questions. What do they expect you to say? Yes, please put me inpatient, that sounds great? If I don’t want to be there, I’m smart enough to answer their questions the “right” way. I just don’t get what good it would do if I did stay there, there’s no miracle happy pill they could give me, or I’d be the first in line. I’m in such a hopeless space. Theres nothing anyone can say to make me feel better. I’m supposed to call someone when I am feeling like I do at this very moment, but what good will that do? It just makes people worry, which makes me feel even worse about myself.

Today the lady I see about meds (who is very cool, thank God), upped my Effexor and Lamictal….we’ll see what happens. I know Im not doing very well when Im analyzing everything she says…just thinking that she is nice to me only because she wants to keep me alive, not because she really likes me. I hate when I do that….but that’s what I do to everyone when I feel like this…I have this internal conversation going on with myself the whole time. No one REALLY wants to have anything to do with me…they just feel sorry for me because Im a freak.

I feel like kittens that some evil person put into a bag and threw into a river…gasping for air, swept away by the current.. I’m just trying to keep my head above water….no one can help. Its so frustrating.

Tonight, Tonight...

Sometimes I understand why people would be afraid of the mentally ill, me in particular. Tonight my mind wages a civil war against itself….against my body. Everything I know as good feels like it’s been forced to seep out of my pores into a puddle on the floor. I’ve lost a battle tonight, I’m ok, but I am in some way defeated….with only a few war wounds. I hate this fight, I hate these mountains and canyons…never ending cycles. Did I once say that I wasn’t sure if I’d choose to be Bipolar? If I did, I was in a moment of insanity….the pain is overwhelming when it visits…not just to me, but people around me, whether they realize it or not. I’m a burden…a nuisance…defected….tired…angry. I’m angry at this disease & myself for not being able to handle it. I just don’t get it.

Exorcism?

Another thought of the day:

I’ve been reading about the Romanian nun, who was schizophrenic that was crucified because “she was demon possessed”.

The craziest thing about it is that this type of thing is just as prevalent in the United States, even in this day & age….I read about an 8 year old autistic boy who was killed in the U.S. during an exorcism…and not too long ago an epileptic kid died during a seizure because his parents took his medicine away & tried to have demons expelled from him.

As a Christian, I believe in demon possession; however, with the medical knowledge of our times, you would think that mental illness would be discovered before a person was thought to be overtaken by a demon. I’ve heard of demon possessed people who could speak languages that they had never learned…now, that’s not a mental illness, that’s just down right freaky. I would certainly hope that if I started speaking in Russian like I had lived there all my life someone would figure out that I needed help that medicine couldn’t provide….and certainly, I would hope that I would not be killed in the process.

The monastery where the nun was killed was pretty much in the middle of nowhere, with no running water or electricity. The priest that killed her had lived there for 4 years. Maybe he went nuts or something?

This kind of thing makes me want to get active in NAMI (The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill) or something. I think I will.

This is from the NAMI website:

NAMI StigmaBusters is a group of dedicated advocates across the country and around the world who seek to fight the inaccurate, hurtful representations of mental illness. Whether these images are found in TV, film, print, or other media, StigmBusters speak out and challenge stereotypes in an effort to educate society about the reality of mental illness and the courageous struggles faced by consumers and families every day. StigmaBusters' goal is to break down the barriers of ignorance, prejudice, or unfair discrimination by promoting education, understanding, and respect.

There’s also information to contact your representatives on many issues that pertain to the mentally ill. The website is www.nami.org If anyone knows any other sites, please post them. I think amnesty international does some stuff for the mentally ill that are in prison. Anyway, that’s my mission of the day…find some way to fight stigma. I'm riled up.

A Bipolar Christian

Heres a quote I read this morning….its by Gerald Sittser, who lost his wife and 4 year old son in a car crash with a drunk driver:

"The sovereign God," he writes, "who is in control of everything, is the same God who has experienced the pain I live with every day. No matter how deep the pit into which I descend, I keep finding God there. He is not aloof from my suffering but draws near to me when I suffer. He is vulnerable to pain, quick to shed tears, and acquainted with grief."

I was reading about people in the Bible and notable Christians that have experienced major depression…here’s a few : Elijah, Job, Saul, Judas, Jeremiah, C.S. Lewis, Martin Luther, Charles Spurgeon….even Jesus, I mean, if you sweat blood you have to be feeling pretty bad.

A lot of Christians think you can pray your way out of depression…or if you read enough scripture, you’ll find a cure to your malady. I think this is true for people who are spiritually depressed. I think there’s a difference in being depressed because you’re discouraged and being depressed because your brain is different from “normies”.

When I’m in a funk, as I’ve been the past few days, I try to remember that Jesus felt every emotion that we do because he was human. He’s felt like I feel…even if he wasn’t bipolar. A bipolar Jesus? Ok, that’s kind of funny. Anyway, it does help me to pray and to read the Bible to an extent, but it doesn’t cure me. Maybe if I was in a convent and prayed and read scripture alllll day long, it would help more…I don’t know. However, I must say that I believe prayer works….it may not cure you, but in my case, I’ve prayed to be delivered from the pit many times…and eventually, I always make it through. I believe God gives me strength when I cant make it anymore….even if I feel like crap, He’s there. I try to remember that….but sometimes its hard.

I’ve read about depression in the Christian Courier and a few other Christian sources, and I think one thing that’s lacking in the over-all world of Christiandom, is a sense of understanding for people with mental illness. A lot of Christians think that you shouldn’t take medicine…that you should be able to pray your way out of the darkness. I hope that changes. I welcome prayers for me and I pray a lot, but it can be discouraging to read something that says that practice should make me alllll better. My brain is different. But- that makes me who I am….even if I don’t like it a lot of the time. I just wish there was more understanding.

Here’s my point of all this rambling: Being depressed doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s something wrong with you spiritually. Mother Teresa could’ve been stricken with schizophrenia….she just wasn’t…but she could’ve been. But – if you’re one of us that has one of these biological troubles – remember, that there is hope…even Jesus, who knew he was going to die on a cross…felt depression. He understands even if no one else does.

Father's Day

I wasn’t going to write about Father’s Day…too predictable…but I can’t help it, I guess. I didn’t go see my dad. I probably should have, I kind of feel bad for some reason, even though I can’t really remember the last time I did go see him on a father’s day….I was probably 14 or so….and I went because I had to. It seems like in the past year we’ve sort of mended some things…alittle anyway….I guess that’s why I feel bad that I didn’t go.

I have only a few good memories of my dad growing up. He was a hard man….he was mean. I was afraid of him my whole life until recently…and he can still scare the shit out of me. His voice can send shivers down my spine.

Here are the good memories I have of him: #1 He used to drink his coffee in his tighty whities at the kitchen table in the mornings and I thought that was funny. #2 One time we were on vacation at the beach and I got caught in an undercurrent and he pulled me up. #3 When our dog, Petey, died he cried (the only time I’ve ever seen him cry). #4 When we’d wake up early to go to the state fair to show cows, he’d stop at a gas station and let me get a honey bun and the good kind of chocolate milk. That’s it. The rest of my memories of him aren’t so good.

It’s weird to be an adult (if that’s what you’d call me); you see your parents in such a different way. My dad was always stocky and strong…his hands and arms seemed huge to me. He’s a pretty short dude, but I always thought of him as being big. Now he’s really skinny and seems pretty frail or something….I mean, he’s still strong, he works like crazy, he’s just not big. He seems human these days….thats weird.

I read something about forgiveness. It said that forgiving someone doesn’t mean you have to want to have lunch with the person you need to forgive; it just means you work everyday to forgive them a little more than you did the day before. I guess that makes sense….it’s still hard though. I’m trying to be nice to him and it seems like he’s trying to be nice to me…so that is 900 times better than how we’ve been for the last ummm…12? years of my life. We didn’t speak for years; he got married without even telling me…it was pretty bad. It’s still tough, it might always be tough…but I guess I can try to forgive him a little more than I did yesterday & one day maybe the thought of having lunch with him wouldn’t be as scary.

Pheonix

Rising from the Ashes

I’ve always been slightly obsessed with ravens. There’s something mysterious about them…something dark but intelligent. There’s an Indian myth that the sun was once falling to the earth in all its fiery glory and a dove flew up and caught it…put it back where it belonged in the heavens, thus saving the world from destruction. By gripping its little teeth (or beak, or whatever birds have) into the blazing sun, the dove was charred and turned black, becoming a raven. I’ve always thought that was the coolest story.

At a tattoo shop in Houston, TX one extremely hot & humid day, Linda and I decided that we should get tattoos together because we were great friends and at the time we weren’t sure when or if we’d ever see each other again. Being the bipolar people we are, we didn’t put a whole heck of a lot of thought into the occasion until we ended up in that shop. (Somehow I ended up in tattoo shops quite often on a whim). Anyway, I looked over the flash on the wall about a million times and this bird kept jumping out at me. It is the only piece that I haven’t covered up that came off of a wall. It was a phoenix. I thought it looked a lot like a raven, so I went for it…and some scraggly looking guy poked ink into my chest 9 million times and now its there for the long haul.

The phoenix is a Christian symbol of the resurrection and eternal life. To be completely honest with you, I had no clue that was the case as I was going through the worst tattoo pain Ive yet experienced….I just thought it was cool. In fact, I didn’t know that until fairly recently. I got that tattoo almost 7 years ago.

Why am I going into this long explanation? Well, when I am feeling as wretched as I have the past couple of days, sometimes it helps to look at that tattoo. It means a lot to me. I got it in my rebellious “I’m free and I’ll do what I want to with my body, thank you very much” period in my life. It reminds me of an interesting time in my life that I survived somehow….like the dove survived the sun. Also, it gives me a sense of hope…like rising from the ashes when everyone (including myself) counted me down for the count. It also has taken on a spiritual meaning…a reminder of the gift of Jesus, his death, resurrection, and the strength the Holy Spirit gives us when we feel like a waterlogged baseball. I used to think of the tattoo as dark and mysterious like the raven, but I don’t anymore. It reminds me of incredible strength. It’s a reminder that we can rise from the ashes even when in the deepest, gates of hell depressions.

Darkness

I’m not sure what happened last night. I’ve been cruising along just fine for the past few weeks and now all of a sudden it feels like a huge dump truck unloaded a ton of cow crap on me or something. I’m not sure why my mood has descended into the depths of hell…I have no good reason to feel horrible. I was in self-destruction mode last night. I forgot my a.m. meds, so I took double my Lamictal last night, hoping that would help some. I don’t think it made a difference.

I’ve just wanted to be alone, in the dark, in a cold house. I’ve been listening to the Ryan Adams Cold Roses cd…there’s a lyric that says “Life is hard enough without a lover that you have to hide your darkness from”. Sometimes I feel like I want to hide my darkness from everyone….I’ve been a hermit for a past couple of weeks, but I haven’t been depressed until it hit me last night.

I woke up this morning feeling like a baseball that’s been left out in the rain for a very long time….dirty, heavy, seams coming apart… The fog has lifted a bit as the day has gone by, but I still don’t feel right. I feel waterlogged with darkness. You never get used to depression no matter how long it has haunted you. This too shall pass…soon, I hope.

Friends

I’ve been thinking about relationships I’ve had over the years with certain people and I’ve been mulling over writing about some of them for the past couple of days. This morning I read a post on a friend’s blog about how some people we remember for a day and others we remember for a lifetime, but they all leave some sort of mark on us whether we know it at the time or not. The post hit home because of recent events that have really made me think about people I’ve known that have definitely left an impression on my life…some of which have left with no time to say goodbye. It’s really hard when you’ve learned so much from someone, to let them go when it’s their time to move on. Maybe sometimes its easier that there is no goodbye…I don’t know.

Without naming names or going into a lot of details, I want to share some of the things that I’ve learned from the people I’ll remember for a lifetime, even if I never see them again:

Always treat people you love like its going to be the last time you see them…it may be.

You don’t have to be “smart” to teach someone something; you just have to be yourself.

If you practice patience, sooner or later you’ll become patient without having to think about it.

You’re never really stuck where you are if you’re unhappy and you don’t want to be stuck.

If you’re happy, it rubs off on people even if they’re having a horrible day.

Courage - N, mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty.

Treat EVERYONE with respect, no matter what color they are, what their sexual orientation is, or what you’re initial judgments may be.

People will let you down, but that doesn’t mean you stop loving them.

Sometimes the simplest gestures can make someone’s day.

If you’re nice to kids they will remember it when they’re adults.

You may forget details about things you’ve done, but you never forget meaningful conversations and nice things people have done for you.

Sometimes when you think you’re the teacher, you’re really the student.

Life is a lot bigger than what’s going on where you are now. You always have options.

Take care of yourself and don’t expect anyone to take care of you.

Always tell people you love what they mean to you as often as you can.

You don’t always have to talk to help someone. There are times when sitting with someone that needs you and just being silent helps.

What you’ve been through makes you who you are.

Those are just a few things I’ve learned from some of the people that have entered and exited my life. I’ll remember them forever.

Notes from California

I’m reading a book about a man’s stay in Montana in the winter. He had no electricity, just running water and some batteries for light to read by at night. It’s a pretty cool book to read during my “silence therapy”. Friday night I was reading and listening to the frogs outside (its been rainy here) and it sparked a couple of memories of places I’ll probably never go again.

As some of you know, I lived in California for a little while. Linda used to cater events on occasion and I would work with her every now and then and help her in the kitchen or serve, or do whatever she needed me to.

Once she prepared food for a women’s retreat in Matilija….now, to tell you the truth, I have no clue where that is. I think its somewhere near Ojai, CA. It’s a law that you can’t smoke cigarettes in Ojai…and we had to hide to smoke there, so I know it had to have been in Ojai. Anyway, the retreat was at this cool place in the middle of nowhere. It felt like it was a secret place that not many people knew about. We got to sleep on the floor in one of the cabins. There were natural hot springs in the cabins and I thought that was cool. No TV, no radio…our cell phones didn’t work, we were truly tucked between mountains. I remember having to get up really early to help Linda with food for the women. It was mainly a vegetarian menu. The ladies had yoga and meditation in the morning and then they came to eat breakfast. I remember just totally tripping out at these women. For one thing, I guess yoga makes you hungry because they ate more food than a dang football team. Throughout the retreat I watched them paint gourds, do weird goddess dances, chants…it was interesting. On the final night there they all got in a big tent. They burned coal in a hole dug in the middle of the inside of the tent. I’m not sure what the purpose of this was – something about sweating out impurities or something. I was really amazed by the whole thing. I watched them and couldn’t believe how long they could stay in that tent sweating to death. Anyway, watching them was extremely entertaining (preparing their food was not, they weren’t the nicest women in the world). But – the coolest thing about it all to me was the noises you heard at night out there in the middle of nowhere. There wasn’t anything close to this place. No car sounds, nothing but the sounds of water in the creek below and the hot springs, and whatever animals lived in the forest (if you call the forest “the woods” in CA, you get laughed at.) I felt revitalized when it was time to go home. All the stresses I brought to the place melted away somehow. I think I have 1 picture of us there. I hope I never forget it.

Another place we worked was at Zaca Lake (http://www.zacalakeretreat.com) Its located in the San Rafael mountains. Linda worked there quite often, but I only worked one wedding with her. We, again, got to sleep on the floor of a cabin. The place was awesome. It’s a huge 20 acre lake that has these huge orange fish. I don’t know if they were koi or what, but I sat and looked at them (you could see the bottom of the lake) for hours. We had to be careful with the food and make sure that everything was locked up so that bears wouldn’t break in and eat everything. I remember it was the first time that I had experienced tofu (disgusting no matter what you do to it). I don’t know what it is about vegetarians on retreats! I got the very cool job of running the juice bar (it was cool except after grinding 8 million carrots and beets your hands turn interesting colors). It was cool, we had wheat grass and ginger and all sorts of different things to juice. The WOODS (I cant help it, Im southern) around the lake were awesome, the mountains were covered with greenery. There were cool birds there. We fed weird looking geese. I remember the sounds at night…..I remember that it sounded like crickets, but it wasn’t crickets…Linda told me what it was, but I can’t remember what she said. We had a flash light when the sun went down. There wasn’t any electricity in our cabin. We were reading a Harry Potter book and we took turns reading to each other and we drank some wine that we had brought along …it was cool to read with flashlights. Anyway, that’s what I remember, and that’s what flashed through my mind as I was reading and listening to the frogs.

Family

Yesterday my grandfather went in for his normal checkup & they found a mass the size of a fist in his colon. They did emergency surgery to remove it and his lymph nodes to make sure that the cancer hadn’t spread. He made it through surgery just fine and is in good spirits although he is in pain. They won’t know until Saturday or Monday if he will have to have chemo or not.

Sometimes it takes something like this to realize the value of family. It doesn’t matter who’s pissed at who, or what else is going on at the time. Everyone rallied around at the hospital to see my grandfather before his surgery. There were about 20 of us, we took up nearly the whole waiting room. My grandfather was all smiles seeing everyone there.

I’ve had some issues with my family. It’s a bit dysfunctional (isn’t everyone’s). But, as I was sitting there in the waiting room with everyone, I couldn’t help but think how blessed I am to have my family. If it had been me in the hospital, they’d all have been there. I’ve had times when I felt like nobody gave a crap about me, but I really know that isn’t true. We’d all be there for each other if something happened.

Depression and Mania are a different kind of disease than something like cancer. Sometimes it’s hard for family and friends to understand how real it is and that it can be fatal. A lot of times people expect you to be able to control it – to “snap out of it” or “chill out”. I’ve felt like my family has left me to deal with the disease on my own many times. People are able to visualize a tumor, a physical injury, and things like that…but it’s hard to visualize chemicals going haywire in your brain. But – that’s ok….as long as they are there when it counts…when you can’t keep going….and I really believe that they’d be there in that situation. I think all of us who suffer from something like Bipolar Disorder or some other mental illness, need to be able to look outside our “in the moment” thoughts. A lot of times those thoughts aren’t rational…they aren’t reality. Hopefully having this written down will help me to remember that my family really is supportive, even if it doesn’t seem like it “in the moment”.

Family is the #1 most important thing in the world, other than God, to my grandfather. It always has been. Nothing makes him happier than to be with all of us, that’s one of the most awesome things about him. He loves us to no end. He believes he is the luckiest man on earth because he has us. I want to be more like him in that respect. I want to be able to remember how blessed I am to have them all on my side. Sometimes I feel like NO ONE is on my side…and that’s just not true. I really have an awesome family, dysfunction and all.

Silence

"The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind."
- Albert Einstein

"We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and private: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship."
- C.S. Lewis

You would think that a person living alone, such as I, would find more solitude in life. That may be true sometimes. I mean, I guess it’s easier to find a quiet place with no kids running around & stuff like that. However, I find myself most of the time creating noise for myself – I have my Dell Jukebox rocking out, or the TV is on, the air conditioner is loud, my dog wants to play, etc., etc. I went camping this past weekend & was looking forward to being alone in my tent with a book…but I don’t know what I was thinking because I was at a motorcycle rally & there wasn’t a moment’s time when someone wasn’t showing their ass, revving up bikes, and making as much noise as possible.

I have always thought that living in a monastery for a while would be beneficial to my mental health. I don’t think they’d take me though – for one thing, I’m not even Catholic. But, the idea of living somewhere quiet with no TV, cell phone, internet, and things like that sounds really good to me. I don’t think I could endure it for a long period of time, but I’d like to do it for at least a month or two.

A friend of mine recently wrote about silence, and I thought it was interesting because solitude has been on my mind a lot lately. Have you ever noticed how much work it is to be somewhere quiet? Last night I was reading The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis and there was a paragraph or 2 about Noise. If you’ve never read the book, it’s letters from a demon to his nephew who is trying to entice a human to the dark side. Anyway, one of the methods he wanted him to use was using noise as a distraction. It’s harder to pray when there’s noise around you, including noise in your mind.

As Einstein said, I think that solitude can stimulate the creative mind. When I need some creative juices, nothing is better than turning off the TV and the music, and just read or write or meditate. It seems to help my brain adjust itself. I guess all the noise can cause a brain overflow. It seems like I can think better if I just turn everything off ….so I think I have a new invention: there’s talk therapy, drug therapy, and my new invention – silence therapy. I am planning on finding some time to put this invention to use….I think I may try to come up with a set amount of time that I’m going to try to do this every week and see what happens.