Isolation: My Best Friend

Isolation is my best friend. And I think I'm beginning to like hanging out with him again.

I just got back from a two-mile walk. I know it was two miles, because I walked for 30 minutes and I know it takes me 30 minutes to walk two miles. You learn these things when you have a history of walking a lot.

I had thought the last few days were evidence that my meds were beginning to have a strong effect on me, but I realized today that much of what I thought was meds was merely a slightly lessened state of hypomania. It could have been worse, so I guess the meds are beginning to work. But as I've said before, I really wish they would work quicker.

I know I'm beginning to isolate again. I knew it today when I woke up. I slept in a bit because of my late night drumming last night, but I didn't want to get out of bed. So I slept an extra hour. I finally got up because I knew if I didn't, nothing would get done and I'd feel like crap for it. Even though I felt like crap already.

That's how it goes sometimes.

I got a few things done, but not enough. Tonight my dad's friend, the woman I'm living with, wanted to know if I got my Food Stamps renewed. Honestly, I had forgotten to call about them earlier this week, but of course, that answer wasn't good enough. I'm going to call the state office in the morning and get the situation squared away.

I understand her frustration with me and I wish she could understand my frustration with myself, because I am absolutely my own worst critic. I wish she had known I had gotten up from the early bedtime I had imposed on myself to take a walk, because then she might not have been speaking so loudly to my dad on the phone when she told him I was asleep and she could talk about me because I wouldn't hear her.

I heard every single word. And I wasn't trying to spy or listen in.

Oh well, beat my ass some more. So I went for my walk.

Otherwise I would have just stayed in bed.

Isolation is my best friend.

I could tell you a lot more about my day and my night last night and the big kiss on the lips I got from a really hot young girl at the bar during set break and how everybody saw it when she laid it on me just to give me a shock, but then I realized who she was when I realized she had her contacts in and was not wearing her glasses. And then, I really had a shock.

She used to be in my youth group when I youth pastored about 7 years ago.

Oh, shit.

She's 22 and I'm 47. And the word on the street is that she likes older men.

Oh, shit.

I could tell you more about my walk this evening and how the woman I live with told me to take a flashlight for safety and I told her I wasn't worried about it and didn't need one.

I could tell you that I don't worry about things like taking a flashlight when I go for a walk in the evening, but that I do worry about things like being seen for who I really am, I worry about the pains I've had lately in my chest and how I'm worried I might have a heart attack after smoking a cigarette during set break while I'm drumming to a vigorous song like "Rebel Yell" by Billy Idol or "Blister In The Sun" by The Violent Femmes.

I could tell you about people who claim I live in the future, always thinking ahead to future plans or brooding on the past, rather than living in the present and seizing the day. I could tell you they are right.

I could tell you my biggest worry is that I won't be around to see those plans come to pass. Because I'm worried something bad is going to happen.

I could tell you that for all my faith in God's love and grace, I feel that I am a failure in the sight of God and my dad, that I have never and will never live up to the gifts, abilities, and potential for success that God has gifted me with. I could tell you that I think my life seems like a horribly terrible cosmic joke.

And I fear that God is laughing at me, a real big, gut-busting laugh.

Or maybe not.

Either way, Isolation is fast becoming my best friend...yet again.