The Sugary Smell of Springtime

We almost had winter this year.

It gets cold here, in the supposed-to-be winter. And we complain, pretend that our 30 degrees are so terrible we just can't stand it. "I didn't move here to be this cold," we say. You can barely see your breath. "It's cold as balls out there."

It usually starts in early January, winds through February, maybe into early March. Then, briefly, spring. Then six months of summer.

But this year was different. This year, there was even snow. Upstate, snow that kept kids out of school for weeks out of time. Here, a memorable vicious ice -- an ice that kept my boss out of work, but certainly didn't keep the rest of us from being there, worried he would show up to an empty lab. People here don't know how to handle snow, handle ice. We don't do cold.

***

Our spring preceded Groundhog Day, as luck would have it, a shiny reward for December cold. Spring used to be my favorite, before I moved here and realized how long I'd been undervaluing autumn. Here, it's a slippery slope from cool to warm to hot to HOT.

But this year, I think we'll actually have 100 days of Spring, which started in February and never quite let up. I've been wearing t-shirts for weeks now, some days with a cardigan that gets shed before I even get to the lab. We've been walking around in flip-flops, down streets in the evening. This weather is ambling weather. It makes it feel like everything is ok, like I can do anything.

***

Spring is such a mish-mash of feelings. Did I mention that on this day, the 16th, four years ago, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I didn't really think about it until just now. I always thought it would stick out like a razor lodged in flesh, would always be oozing and bleeding. Again, I've underestimated the human capacity for forgetting. Once upon a time, I drove around in a parking lot, blind with tears and deaf with the word "BIPOLAR" echoing deep in my ear. But now that pain is much more dull. Bipolar disorder rolls out of my mouth -- an explanation, an assertion, never an apology.

Next week, it will be four years from the first time I ever took the pills. And then there is stillness. March 22nd is the end of a story. Seeking -- and receiving -- treatment was the end to a year of sad confusing stories. From the first time I ever fucked someone else to the day that I first put that 25 mg pill on top of my tongue -- one continuous narrative. There's not much time in the year that's empty, where I can't say: "2006 -- May. I was smoking up on the swing by the softball field and getting felt up, implored to go home with someone. 2006 -- August. I was getting engaged and trying to figure my life out, thinking I could just make myself be ok. 2006 -- November. Remember how it all fell apart?"

March 22nd - April 1st. Ten days of reprieve each year. Then, on April 2nd, it all starts again -- this year will be my 5th round through the Jenny B Magical Mental Illness Tour.

From Baby, a book that makes me think about this too: "Life is made up of circles."

***

"if you want freedom

dont mistake circles

for revolutions"

(da levy, from Tombstone As A Lonely Charm)

Every year, in spring, there's a distinct feeling of longing. My neurons ache to go off their rails. They sputter out their neurotransmitters in an impotent attempt to make me feel something like that again. They are hissing pitiful assholes, "But don't you remember how good you felt? Remember when you felt smart and brilliant, like you could do anything, be anyone? You remember, don't you?"

I pretend that I don't remember, but I do. I remember how it felt, what it looked like. I trace my fingers over words I wrote at those times, my handwriting all swinging and scrawling, nothing like the tight letters I write when I'm sane. My brain, wanting to run, was perpetually tripping over my fingers. I was my own limiting reagent. Then, that seemed terrible. Now, I know it was the only thing that let me hold anything together. We like to think that we have insight, that we are the glue. But really, at my most undone times, the only things keeping me in real life were gravity, the time-space continuum and connective tissue. If it weren't for those anchors...oh man, the things I could have done.

My mind gets caught in ruts, gets strung up in the circles. The circles are what generate the longing, the real physical ache in my limbs and stomach. I am standing still at a crosswalk, and suddenly I hear "Crash" by the Dave Matthews Band, and I am stunned for a few seconds. I lose feeling in my shoulders and jaw -- my arms and my lungs are just hanging in the air. The longing makes it hard to breathe.

The truth is -- I will never forget. This is the longing. These are the circles.

Then, I remember this life. This life is held together by so much more than physics and physiology. I sneak in at night after he's already asleep and I'm putting things down on the bed stand, I wake him accidentally and he wraps his warm arms around my legs. My life is held together by hard work, by brunch negotiations and Netflix Instant Play of Parks and Recreations, by inside jokes and apologies. My life now is held together by the give and take of a beautiful relationship, by many good hearty solid friendships, by the fact that i'm trying hard to get somewhere and appreciating the struggle. There's not much time, these days, for longing. This is a revolution.

***

My team is made up of people who are older than me, much older -- 50s, 60s even. I love spending time with them because I realized that I don't have that in my life -- older people who aren't in charge of me. Older people who can be friends. Older people who just let their hands float away after a fist bump, telling me that their fist bumps don't blow up, they amble.

Today, the two older males on the team were telling jokes before group workout.

"So, there's a first grade teacher," starts Bob, our constant joker, a man with arthritis in his hips who pushes himself to run around the track and go 6 times up and down the stairs.

"This first grade teacher is reading the story of the Three Little Pigs. And she says to the kids, 'The first pig went to the farmer and asked for some straw. And what did the farmer say back to the pig?'" There's a gleam in his eye now, it's coming....

"And a kid in the back of the room yelled out, 'SONOFABITCH, It's a talking pig!'"

We are all doubled over laughing, warming up for an hour of hard work. It was one of those things I didn't realize I was missing -- people to connect with in this way. It was missing, and now it's here. It's spring time, and there is laughter in my life, and there isn't much room for longing anymore.

SONOFABITCH, not much room at all.