'Tis the Season to Be...

‘Tis the Season to Be  ...

Christmas is coming-there can be no doubt about that.  Stores everywhere have their displays up, and two-thirds of the commercials on television feature yuletide messages.  What I have noticed about people’s responses is, you either love and embrace the season or...let’s see now.  I dislike using the word “hate”; it’s more that people disdain Christmas.

I am someone who cherishes this time of year for all of the usual reasons.  Growing up in a big family, it was one time of the year when one and all celebrated in harmony.  Of course, Mama required that we all pitch in and help clean the house from top to bottom, and that was not necessarily a lot of fun.  But we also knew that when the job was finished, the next step was to get the tree.  In our house the tree did not arrive until the twenty-second or the twenty-third, because Mama felt that the tree should stay up until the 6th of January, long past our return to school.

I can understand people who are overwhelmed by the additional requirements of contending with Christmas, while balancing the task of trying to cope with small children.  After all, an individual can only do so much before pure exhaustion takes over.  I think it is more that some people just get annoyed by the omnipresent trappings of the season, thinking to themselves that commercialism and the need to make a buck, force them to partake in a process that does not match what they would like to see.  I feel bad for these people, because they probably would participate on some level, but that to have it rammed down their gullets, leaves them shaking their heads in frustration.

As for the commercial aspects of Christmas, any given approach to gift-giving is based on the economics of each household’s capabilities.  For most there are given limitations to what can be done, but often those limitations are exceeded and the result is an economic burden.  That leads to additional resentment and I can understand that.  However, there are ways to get around this difficulty if one simply looks at the picture with an open perspective.  

Saving for Christmas over the course of the year is one option; toning down the extravagance of Christmas is another.  One additional strategy is to go with a home-made theme, instead of a commercial one, or using some combination of the above.  Baking cookies, or making candy that can be gift-wrapped and presented to others is a viable way of contending with gift-giving.  Even if the recipient is not into sweets, there is always the option of redirecting the goodies to someone else who is.  Receiving a portion of home-made fudge certainly floats my boat, even if I  only partake in a piece or two, before making it available to visitors or family.

As for Christmas music and films, I adore them.  Of course it ties back into my upbringing, but I have maintained the custom throughout my lifetime.  Last year I set a personal record by watching nine different versions of “A Christmas Carol,” and I will exceed that number this year, since Annie discovered Henry Winkler’s “An American Christmas Carol,” something she knew would turn me on.

I can already hear you saying, “Why would you want to watch the same story ten times?”  All I can say is that I do not watch them all in one day.  Rather, I spread them out during the entire season, and many I watch while working an assortment of jigsaw puzzles.  I have a half-dozen or so that I work each year, that have Holiday themes.  

So I guess there is a method to my madness.  I am hopelessly addicted to Christmas and all of the trimmings that accompany it.  Call me twisted-call me obsessed; just call me in time for Christmas dinner.  I will be ready with bells on. 

Tea for Me

Tea for Me

I have a cold.  I and probably half of America.  So what’s the big deal?  This is the first time in my life that I welcome said cold with open arms, if not open sinuses.  Why would that be, you might ask?  I welcome my cold because I caught it from Annie.

I knew she had a cold when she came up to visit over the Thanksgiving Holidays.  I openly consorted with her, even though she warned me that she had been experiencing a sore throat, and that it had turned into a full-blown cold.  Did I care?  Emphatically not.  

Just as I used to joke that I loved going to breakfast with her, because it implied that we had spent the night together, I joked last week that I hoped I would catch her cold.  If she and I were not together, there is a fairly good chance I could have escaped the ravages of this pesky business.  However, we are together, so to be unhappy at the resulting cold, would be to imply that I was unhappy with Annie, and that is never going to happen.

I know I am sort of a goofy guy, but that is the way my world works.  Love Annie-love her cold.  I have shouted-repeatedly-that I would do anything on the planet for her, and now I have the opportunity to prove it.  I woke up at 1:25 this morning, and immediately decided a cup-or two-of Gypsy Cold Care Tea was in order.  

Dozer the dog was most perturbed to be disturbed out of his snoring slumber, but I tried to convince him that he did not have to accompany me to the kitchen to make said tea.  Maybe it was the howling of the wind outside, signaling the approach of the series of November storms that have been forecast to hit NorCal, or maybe the banging of the screen door.  Suffice to say, he was happy when I returned to the bed with my tea, and turned on the light so I could continue to read The Girl Who Played with Fire.  Yes, I am reading again, after a hiatus of almost two years.

I guess it was one of the many lifestyle changes that I underwent, over the course of the time since I emerged from panic attack syndrome, in October of 2010.  Little did I know that I would then proceed to exhibit the full-blown tendencies of a bipolar-ll mood disorder.  Big sigh.  But that is ancient history.

Now I am well on the way to mastering this illness, with the help of the same medication that I was so unwilling to indulge in.  Silly me.  I should have realized that millions of Americans, who also take medication for this malady, could not all have been off-course.  

Now I am aggressively fighting this cold with tea, rest and vitamin C.  Ever since an esteemed colleague at school convinced me that over-the-counter medicine is nonproductive, or even detrimental to a cold, I have taken this stance.  In the past I have found this type of medication has done nothing more than give me a fat head, and very weird dreams.  The worst side effect of the tea is that I have to get up every half hour and stumble into the bathroom to use the facilities.

So when I say I have a cold, I am not whining, I am celebrating.  Call me goofy, call me naive, but just make sure you call me happy, because that is the way I feel.

The Zinnia

The Zinnia

My sweetest of apple blossoms is a very private person.  I have agreed that I will not elaborate about her or our difficulties.  However, my heart is like a perfect round stone, skipping merrily over the surface of a pond, because I have my wife and my life back.  Therefore, if I speak only of myself, when it comes to illness, I think I am on solid ground

Annie is the smartest woman I have ever met when it comes to common sense and street smarts.  There is no way I could ever have effected the changes that I have made within myself, if Annie went about it in any other way, than to move down to Willits, an hour away, in order to get a handle on her illness.

I am up on our mountain, taking care of the critters, working construction when the weather permits, and trying to cut/split five to six cords of wood to get the household through what has started out to be a  harsh winter (regardless of the weather).  I am sixty years old and my body is protesting mightily, but that is neither here nor there, and has nothing whatsoever to do with anything.

When Masked Mom quoted Donovan Hohn in her “Random Quote Friday,” she wrote, “The past creates us and we are powerless to change it.  We can only-if we are very persistent and very lucky and usually not even then-change ourselves.”  

Though it has been very difficult because I have had to battle solitude and loneliness, I have made many changes, the need for which was caused-in part-by my diagnosis as being bipolar.  I prefer to refer to it by the more contemporary title of mood spectrum disorder.

I have been taking the medication for almost two months, and because of this, I have successfully managed to eradicate some of the other things in my life that may have contributed to the ups and downs of my moods.  I had already stopped alcohol consumption at the beginning of the summer, though I have never been much of a drinker; my drug of choice has always been reefer.

At the same time as I began the meds, I decided that I would stop all consumption of marijuana, because I figured I no longer need it to help stabilize my temperament.  The meds are supposed to do that.  It was ridiculously easy, because I knew that it would please Annie, and I was willing to do anything on the planet to win back her heart.  

I tossed in caffeine (another lifetime relationship) and sugar, for good measure, in an effort to eliminate ANYthing that would contribute to shifting my frame of mind, either up or down.

And that was only the beginning.  I learned that I needed to do three things: get a handle on my illness, learn to be independent and learn to be less self-centered.  In all reality, I could never have done these three things successfully, if there was no sense of urgency.  How better to effect these changes, than to remove herself from the arena?  Annie is one smart cookie.

I protested!  I squirmed!  I begged, but it was all to no avail.  I was told that there was no time framework in place, and that I needed to either go about the tasks required, or suffer the consequence of losing her.  So independence has been achieved, simply because it was either sink or swim.  After all, I am the guy who “hitchhiked”-in uniform-while in the military, from Seoul, Korea, to Osan Air Force Base, in Korea, to Osaka Air force Base, in Japan, to Travis Air Force Base, in California, to home.

That could be construed as independent.

Somewhere along the line, I lost that ability to function independently.  However, Annie could no longer keep me afloat, because she had far bigger worries than those which plagued me.  As my anxiety issues have become more pronounced over the years, she felt she had to disengage.

Now that I am taking the meds, and have soaked up every iota of information about my own illness, I feel-as does Annie-that I have a handle on my illness.  As for being self-centered, nothing pulled the rug out from beneath my feet, like Annie vacating the premises.  Suddenly, I was able to see clearly, that to which she referred.  If I wanted back into her life, I needed to recognize that I no longer came first.  I can only say that my vision is now twenty-twenty, and I know where my priorities are.

My priorities are with Annie.  If I ever forget that, I know, and not just in the back of my mind, what may result.  I would never risk that course of action; therefore, I will never put myself or my needs first again.

When I asked Annie what kind of flower she thought might best represent her, she said a zinnia, because they are so tough.  But Annie is also fragile, because her illness makes her so.  As oxymoronic as it may appear, my girl is the toughest, and yet most fragile flower, in the garden that is life.

Out of the [Broom] Closet

Out of the [Broom] Closet

October 31st, having arrived after an eternity, I can finally come out of my [broom] closet and admit that I am not a fan.  When I was a kid, it was all good.  There were a whole bunch of us in my family, who would go out in home-made costumes,  tame by today’s standards, but go out we did.

However, upon returning to the house, the ritual required that we gather around the more than spacious kitchen table and empty our bags of treats out in one gigantic pile.  Then Mama would begin the classifying and sorting of the goodies, including a share for Papa, who had a yen for chocolate, and piles for the “little kids” who were still too small to trick-or-treat.

Though it may have  seemed an old-fashioned concept at the time, no one balked at seeing that the final portion that was received, was smaller than that which was brought back from the outing.  It’s just the we did things.

So what happened to dampen my enthusiasm?  Maybe it was the razor blades that started appearing in the apples, or the fact that anything that was “home-made” took on a slightly ominous note.  If it wasn’t store-wrapped, it was suspicious.

More likely, it has to do with a lifetime of anxiety when it come to scary films.  Having been terrified into any number of panic attacks by the “Twilight Zone,” or films such as “Tales from the Crypt” I am more than happy to ignore the whole day.

I think back to a time, a couple of years after I got out of the army, when I had a fine head of hair, and a flaming-red beard that went down to the middle of my chest.  It was enough to make people approaching me, side-step to the other side of the road.  I didn’t care, because those who knew me, still greeted me with a hug and a howdy.

However, when I was invited to a costume party at the home of a fellow employee of the auto-parts house, I decided to take the extreme step of shaving both my beard and my head.  I donned a conservative outfit, and went as a “reformed hippie.” 

Lo and behold, there were a lot of people at this party, only a dozen or so who knew me.  The net result was basically, “Hey, look at the goofy guy who did not dress up for the party.”  Big sigh.  The best laid plans of mice and men.

Later, as an educator, I, together with the man with whom I team-taught, hosted the annual Halloween party at the middle school.  My biggest problem then was the fact that the kids who chose to wear masks, had a certain element of anonymity, which, as you may guess, does not really work on a middle school campus, when the mood was already off the charts.

How does a teacher maintain a modicum of appropriate behavior, when he knows not, who the clown is who is running roughshod over the rest of the kids?

Living on a mountain, and not having had trick-or-treaters since the eighties, when my own small sons would invite local neighbors (all three of them) to stop by and trick-or-treat, I am relieved of this responsibility.  The time will come, I feel certain, when grandchildren will force me to further adjust my attitude, but for now, I am content to let the whole holiday slip past, while the inexorable march of time brings me closer to what I really consider a holiday: Thanksgiving and her big sister Christmas.

Yes, I saw a Christmas advertisement on the television the other night, but instead of groaning, I was grinning.  What can I say?  The only person in costume is Santa, and he evokes sweet dreams, not nightmares.

Am I Lonesome Tonight?

Am I Lonesome Tonight?

Of all the disheartening possibilities in life, loneliness is not the worst; many people suffer far more debilitating lifestyles than spending time by themselves.  However, acknowledging that illness or death in the family can be infinitely worse, does not remove the fact that for me, living by myself is by far the most unpleasant existence I have ever encountered.

The single time I have embarked on this course of action in my lifetime,was a four-week period back in 1979, when I took a living situation in an apartment in Milpitas, a small city down in the Bay Area.  My first marriage had come shockingly to an end, and I was uninterested in pursuing any kind of romantic connection.  I was distantly acquainted with an member of the firm that employed me, and learned that she was interested in a roommate, to help defray the cost of an apartment.

I only saw her once during that period, because she spent all of her time with her boyfriend.  The only clear memory of that month was the World Series between the victorious Pirates (“We Are Family”) and the Orioles.  The rest of the time I was mired in my own misery.

Why that would be the case, I do not know.  My two closest younger siblings both profess to revel in the feeling of solitude, finding that the time spent alone, allows for the creative juices to flow abundantly.  We all originated in a household that eventually contained eleven of us, nine kids and the parents.  Chaos reigned and harmony ensued.

That would certainly explain my siblings’ desire for solitude, but also accounts for my own reticence when it comes to being by my lonesome.  I hate the sound of silence, even if our English bulldog’s resounding snoring resonates in the immediacy of my bed.  It’s just not the same.

Companionship is what I seek and I am not ashamed to admit it.  I am a social creature and crave an environment which includes others.  Maybe social is misleading, because I am not particularly interested in going out, and pursuing the nightlife; I just mean that having people around makes the world proceed less chaotically for me.  Not even the pleasures of intimacy attract me as much as knowing that someone will be there at dinnertime, to share a meal.  I make a mean chicken cacciatore.

I must tread cautiously at this juncture in time, because I do not want to incur the wrath of my sweetest of Apple Blossoms, who has taken a course of action that does not include me.  I can only imagine what being diagnosed with cancer must be like, and then having surgery to remove a kidney.  The fact that Annie has chosen to relocate to Willits, an hour south of here, so as to be able to have more access to her doctors, really has nothing to do with me.

I can only sit back and accept her decision.  Well, that’s not completely true; I could alter my lifestyle and join the social set, and move on.  Obviously, that is not my intent.  So I will be lonesome tonight.

All That Matters

All That Matters

Technology being the wonderful tool that it is, I can now stop beating my head against a tree, because my friend Eric has put me back on track.  Blogger changed my format (though not of anyone else with whom I have communicated) and I have been stymied since September 19th, unable to access any aspect of my blog, except the writing itself.

I could not check my comments, stats or post a new piece of writing.  Eric stopped by to watch a football game, and I brought up the subject of my tech woes, hesitatingly, because I hate to bother people.  He spent a total of thirty seconds, before he said, “There, it looks different, but this should solve your problem.  Sure enough, it was all there.  When I asked what he had done, he said, “You were just off by one link.”

Oh.  Well if I was only off by one link, then everything must be OK.  What’s a link?  However, when all is said and done, I really don’t care, just so that I can occasionally record a few thoughts, for anyone who chooses to revisit my site.  I have undergone a few changes in the past month, the first of which was to shave my head of every vestige of covering that I could remove.

Why?  I think those mustache tails proved to be the bane of my existence.  It appears as though all of my issues seemed to emerge the longer those tails extended down past my chin.  At first I credited my mustache with the Giants’ success in 2010.  The winning of the World Series had to be due to the flowing nature of that ‘stache.  However, when the Giants faltered in 2011, that shot that theory down, and then things got macabre.

However, bipolarism isn’t a death sentence; it may be a “normal” life de-railer, but it is up to the engineer to put the train back on track.  So I have struggled.  I resisted the meds experience, with Annie’s support, and it is one of the of the only decisions of my life that I genuinely rue.  Why didn’t I accept the fact that millions of successful-at-life people have gone this route, and emerged as strong as ever?

Be that as it may, I am almost a month into that process and must assume that things will improve.  I have had only two side-effects of note: an inability to sleep more than a couple hours at any time (including total removal of my ability to nap during the day) and a severe loss of appetite.  I have dropped more than twenty pounds since September 21st.

Additionally, I have stopped an adult lifetime of indulgence in marijuana, with ridiculous ease.  For quite some time now, I have referred to reefer as my “mood stabilizer.”  Now that I have a legitimate, corporate-American-made mood stabilizer, I figured I didn’t need two.  Besides, reefer didn’t do anything to alleviate my bipolar issues, so that reinforced my decision.

And while I was at it, I also cut caffeine completely out of my life.  Again, a substance with which I got well-acquainted in high school, has vacated the premises.  Astonishing, actually, how easy it was.  Forever it seems, I have heard of the menacing headaches that are supposed to accompany this action, but experienced none of it.  To be honest, I had reduced my intake months ago to only one or two very small cups per morning, and that may have facilitated matters, but suffice to say, I am a happy camper.

Having eliminated alcohol (I have never been much of an imbiber) early this recent summer, I now feel that my mood-altering indulgences have slipped gently into the back current of my life.  I do not miss any of the three.  Has it made a difference in my bipolarism?  I can’t tell you, because I was never aware that my actions were anything different than they have been my whole life.  You would have to ask someone who lives with me.  That being impossible, because I live by myself, I will just have to wait.

I will leave matters at that, for the moment.  Know though, that I have three options: I can remain on this mountain in the state of the hermit; I can reenter the social world, or I can bide my time and pursue my relationship with Annie, whose time-frame on getting a handle on her own illness (she has taken a living situation in Willits, an hour away) has no timeline.  I have chosen to pursue my relationship with Annie, even though it means an undetermined amount of time, living by myself.  I hate every moment of every day, being by myself, but that is the price I pay.  If it gets too tough, then my direction will change.  

For now I mark time, every day on the calendar, with my Sharpie.  One x per day, marking both the consumption of one minute bit of medication, and the passage of one more day.

I love her and that’s all that matters.

Ready for Action-Ready for Danger

Ready for Action-Ready for Danger

Life is a mixed bag for me these days, a good news/bad news proposition, so to speak.  I am ecstatic that Annie is out of the hospital and back up here on the mountain, and on the way to recovery.  I am sad that she is recuperating elsewhere than here in our home, but I fully understand that it is necessary.

Annie needs to eat properly, and not just the occasional chicken cacciatore special. She needs to eat the kind of food that her daughters-in-law can prepare, and she needs the attention of others who can provide the emotional support that she needs, which I am unable to provide.

I mentioned in an earlier piece that I wanted to provide the support,  but in the end, I was not able to step outside my own disability, and rise to the occasion.  Therefore, I now must move graciously aside, while others conduct the business of helping Annie recuperate. 

Meanwhile, my own forward progress is going to elevate its game this Friday, as I once again meander down to Ukiah, for my visit to the Veterans Administration doctor, who will give me my first physical exam.  To him I am going to pitch my request for medication to help my mood spectrum disorder, after having steadfastly refused to go down this avenue, ever since the first visit to Dr. Garratt, last March.  My current psychologist, Dr. Cieri in Ukiah, has faxed a referral to Dr. Shepherd, the doctor I am going to see on Friday, to facilitate the prescription of this medication.

I have struggled to explain my hesitation to take on a mood-stabilizing drug; I think it is more out of fear than out of knowledge.  I wrote about the potentially lethal skin rash that has been known to accompany this medication, and I read about all of the other side-effects.  I never found the one that I was most terrified of, the one that would essentially take the real me, and replace it with a facsimile, who performed the same motions as me, but with a sugary coating over everything that indicated a false presence.  

I don’t even know what it is I am trying to articulate.  I was and remain very nervous, that the pills will remove from me, something that I am unaware is gone, but that will somehow mean that the passion and exuberance of life will be missing, in order to keep my illness at bay.

This thought has been creepy all along, and yet, here I am, ready to take the plunge.  Now it gets easy.  Why would I do something against my better judgment?  I would do it to prove to Annie that I now recognize that I am dealing with am illness that surpasses my own abilities to contend with it.  I even had Annie’s support to try and contend without medication, through sleep, exercise and diet.  None of that was remotely good enough to stave off the onset of MSD symptoms, in the days leading up to Annie’s surgery.  

Therefore, I now intend to prove that life with medication, no matter what the ramifications, is better than life without Annie.  In an effort to prove that I would do anything on earth to help her get better, I will begin my own version of recuperating from my illness, and see if I can keep pace.  

I need to progress from my current mental health level, to the next one, and that means taking medication.  It’s not my first choice, but it beats what’s been happening so far.  Wish me luck, and if you see me grinning vacuously on the street some day, you’ll know that the meds were a success, I guess, and we’ll all have a good time, because, well, you know, both the Giants and the 49ers are winning, and what better reason to grin?