So I turned the big 4-0 last December, and while it seemed like just another innocuous day, an excuse to get together with family and friends, it’s proving to be more of a momentous mark for different reasons, especially lately.
I’m never without a book. Ever since I was holed up in that group home during my early stages of recovery in 2004, reading was always therapy for me, my mechanism for coping, my way of wading through the storm. When I’m into a good book, I am taken away from the present, enjoying the fictitious world created by the writer. This was a lot easier to do back in 2004, when I still had some remnants of the hyper-creativity that invaded my brain during some of my more symptomatic times.
So today, 15 years into recovery and remaining stable throughout most of that time, the hyper-creativity is lost, the books I’m reading are becoming muted and gray stories about repeated themes that I have poured over and analyzed for so long; the passion, the desire, the excitement to devour a good book is becoming lost and distant. Is it the aging process? Am I just less motivated now? More dull perhaps? I’m not sure.
I’ve turned to writing now with hopes that it will help quell my disheartened spirit, and so far, it’s working, at least a little bit. I’m still searching for, and very much missing, the vigor and vitality that reading and writing brought me years ago, and I’m hoping they will return; although, I’m not quite sure how to make that happen.
I guess I’m torn between holding onto a past that was enlightening and exciting and accepting a present that is far less so. But if stability means giving into a more mundane existence, perhaps because I’m getting older, then I’ll have to be okay with that because there are still many things to celebrate in my life today, even without the drive, motivation, and fuel the arts brought me way back when.
A Bipolar Life 