Mood Madness

Am I mad for wanting to believe that in my life, joy and despair must co-exist? That I am not me with either one of them gone? Sometimes I wonder if I was sentenced to this mood madness the day I was given my first breath. Then, as a child trying to survive in a world filled with so much pain. Perhaps then is when I should have known what was to come. Even when I was being abused in my darkest moments, I was still this vivacious child, always so curious and ready to try something new. I was the girl that would climb the highest treetop, race first down the steepest hill, ask for the merry go round to be spun faster and claim to beat up anyone who stood in my way. I was the first one done with my class work, and the last child to leave the school, staying late to work on some project. I proclaimed to love my family more than anything to anyone who had a word to say about my family…and cowered in a corner when a parent drew near. I was the epitome of exuberance, or perhaps of sanguine temperament, “It reacts quickly and in lively fashion to every kind of influence, it lights up immediately but excitement dies down equally fast. The individual leads a restless life, and likes extremes. We get a picture of vivacious exuberance or of an irritable, troubled hastiness.”

I am always reminded of a few sentences from A Shining Affliction, when thinking about the complexities of my personality: “I push aside too the impression that although many people feel close to me, no one has a whole picture of me, and this is bound to catch up with me sooner or later.” It took me a long time to realize just exactly who I was, and so I realized, how could anyone ever really get the whole picture…I first had to become whole myself. “Will she ever exist beyond arms reach,” always gets me thinking. I felt like this with so many people…that I was “here” but always just beyond their reach. That no one could ever get to know the real me because I was too ugly and broken inside. Bobb was the first person to teach me otherwise…the first person to reach deep inside my soul and beg for me to show her more. She found the passion I had for life that I had long since hidden in my childhood. I look back at that little girl and often wonder where she went. But I know it was the pain of living a double life that ultimately killed her. Still, I catch glimpses now and then, of riding a big wheel in the courtyard or jumping of cliffs into the sea. The memories play like an old slide show that my grandparents had. I see this smiling, happy, vivacious child…and yet somehow she is not me. But I know now that it isn’t that it’s not me in those memories, it’s that the child itself was killed- forced into an adulthood and responsibility that I should have never been given.

So now I wonder if leading that double life, having the death of my childhood at such an early age…if all of that was the precursor to my struggle with mood and madness. And if I am now mad for considering the possibility that I am a better person for it. I almost always find my answer in the eyes of a little child named Julia. Because I know it is my passion and creativity that has fueled her own healing and that my sleepless nights lamenting upon her progress and my on the spot ideas have spurred her on. I think on a different level when I am with children like Julia and part of me knows this could not happen if I was not so deeply and profoundly affected myself. I have a passion for life that is incredible, and without that, I don’t think I could or would want to live my life in a lesser fashion.

That is just the exuberant part of my life, there also dwells within me this deep sadness and despair. I seldom return to this area of my soul, but I know it is forever there. But because it resides within me, I appreciate every sun rise and sun set that much more. I appreciate the ability to love and be loved on a different level…and I see the beauty in every rain fall. All because there was a time when I thought I’d never experience the beauty in each of those things again. I spent more of my time dying than living, and now that I have chosen life, everything seems so much more intense than it did before. I love more, laugh more, smile more, smirk more, listen more, talk more, and cry more. Everything is more to me, because I have knocked upon deaths door and been denied and instead willed to live. And so I live with ever fiber of my being. Because Bobb is the one that slammed the door and left it up to me to decide to fight to die, or surrender to living. I surrendered with all of my heart and she has taught me how life is sweet and I’ve learned it is so much more than that.

Would I want to live a life without this mood madness? No, and I say that with a hint of uneasiness, but with a strong voice. I have come to love who I am and the passion that I hold for this life…and I know in my heart of hearts that the passion comes from the existence of both great sorrow in my heart and great joy. I have worked extraordinarily hard to harness the power of both and I am successful more days than not…but each second I experience pure happiness is worth all the years of sorrow I faced and will face. I survived my life and the death of the child within, and I realize and acknowledge the fact that I made it. As a result, I will live my life to the fullest and cherish each moment I can stand in the sun or dance in the rain. Life is sweet…and so much more.