Disease

A member of my husband's family committed suicide yesterday. He was a good man. I find myself wishing that I could have known him better.
I don't think I am asking the normal questions. I can't say "How could life ever seem so hopeless?" I know life can look that hopeless and death seem like the only option. So why do some people do it and some don't? Why haven't I done it? I am diagnosed as bipolar. Numbers say that anywhere from 30% - 60% of bipolar patients die of the disease, meaning they kill themselves.
Some people see it as selfishness. These people are only thinking about themselves, they say. They are taking themselves away from the people that love them. They aren't taking themselves from anyone. They are victims, this is a disease. It is a disease that is growing and consuming us.
We have put happiness up as the sonum bonum. We have put success as the only option. Everyone has their own definition of success, because everyone is entitled to their own definition of truth.So these people define their reality, they define their happiness, and they throw themselves into that truth. Who they are becomes synonymous with their homemade definition of happiness and success. For a teenager it is a first lover. For a business man it is the balance of his bank account. For a housewife it is a successful marriage and children. For me it was a feeling of creative significance. So when we fail we not only loose happiness, we not only lose success, we lose ourselves. It is impossible to live when you are nothing.
I still fight with this. Going to work everyday isn't enough for me, because my work is not important. I sit up trying to create something everyday because the day feels wasted if I don't. The strings of time in my life where I am not making and doing bring on bouts of depression and that feeling of hopelessness. I have only recently come to the point where I can look past my definition. I can look at the definition that God gives me. The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. So everything I do should bring God glory in some way, but more then that anything I would do that would detract glory from God is off limits. I am a bearer of the Image of God, I can never be nothing.
It is a disease, and just like so many things in our culture the cure we are putting out there just makes everything worse. Its a disease I have had. The medications to cure my mind almost killed my body. In the end what needed curing was my soul. When my soul found a peaceful place to rest then my mind and my body found better places. Holistic peace is the only answer. Living, praying, thinking, eating, and doing, what is wholesome and glorifying.
So I cry for Ed, because he never found that peaceful place. I cry for anyone who can't seem to find it. Sometimes, I cry for myself, because I know all of this and I still eat the wrong things and live a sedentary lifestyle, I think on dark things and do not exercise my mind, I fret and do not pray. But tonight I cry for Ed and I pray that there was peace and truth awaiting him on the other side.

Absolve, we beseech Thee, O Lord, the soul of Thy servant from every bond of sin, that being raised in the glory of the resurrection, he may be refreshed among the Saints and Elect. Through Christ our Lord.
Amen. 

I Like Me Today

I discovered something this week. I kinda like myself.
 I remember getting guacamole on my nachos by accident as a teenager. I hated guacamole. I had tried it at some vague point in the past and hated it, but it was sitting there. I tried the green mush, and it was really good. It turns out that sometime, who knows when, I actually had grown to like guacamole.
That's how I felt this week. I have never liked me before. I was one of my least favorite people. Now, I enjoy my company. I have fun sewing with myself. I now have the same hobbies as myself. I've always admired craftiness, but thought I was incapable, turns out I'm quite capable. My clothes have been changing steadily. When Grandmom died I look at my closet and realized I did not have a black dress to wear to the funeral. For the better part of my life I have not had anything but black clothes in my wardrobe. I have wanted Zulu Knots in my hair since I was 15. I would twist my hair up and love it, but talk myself out of them before a single soul every saw them. Last night, I put Zulu Knots in my hair and wore them to a wedding today.
So I find myself asking, how comfortable am I in my own skin now? Do I care what anyone else thinks about my hair or my clothes or my music? If I want to listen to Joan Jett, Rufus Wainwright, Pink, and The Beatles, all in the same playlist then why is that any of your business? It's who I am and I will enjoy my playlist, hippy skirts and funky hair with me.
I was surfing for free patterns on the internet and found this one pattern. It's nothing I have ever seen anyone wear. It might look absolutely ridiculous to the outside observer, but I like it. So how comfortable am I really? I think I am going to make it tomorrow.  I think I may have reached a point where I am not my own biggest critic. I might even have actually become my second biggest fan.