The Daily Grind

So, after about 18 months of unemployment, I finally got a job. I just finished up my first week and I'm happy to report that I think that I'll be able to stick with this until Brendan graduates from Notre Dame. I'm keeping my fingers crossed though.

One of the things about having a mental illness is that for me, it's not necessarily something that's acute all the time. It comes and goes, flaring up with ferocious intensity and slinking away into the shadows. I live in constant anticipation of the next time my mind is going to freak out on me and the hardest part of my new job hasn't been adjusting to working or learning the ropes of a new routine. The hardest part has been overcoming my personal anxieties that I'll be overwhelmed by my own mental hang ups and find myself incapacitated.

But I keep telling myself that if 90% of life is just showing up, then I can do that. Maybe life is all about taking baby steps, about not thinking about climbing the entire mountain when you have 10,000 feet to go.

I'm trying to keep a positive attitude, but sometimes, that can be very challenging. I'm naturally a bit pessimistic. Sigh.

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The Dairy Cow's Mind

I would imagine that a dairy cow doesn't think about all that much in any given day. It hunkers over to a patch of hay or grass and eats, investing a great portion of its time chewing regurgitated food while standing beside an equally dull comrade in a stinky field in the middle of nowhere. I wonder if the cows know where their milk goes after the massive machines suck it from them. I wonder if they form some kind of attachment to the machine, as though its a mechanical calf, a child the cow is instinct-bound to support and nurture.

I would imagine that the mind of a dairy cow is rather devoid of any abstract thought or originality. If we could peer into a the minds of a herd of cows, I'm not sure we'd be able to tell them apart aside from the fact that one might be thinking about eating while another might be thinking about the ideal place to lay down. The mind of a cow is devoid of the multiplicity of thoughts that should be floating around a person's brain at any given time.

I'm feeling a bit like a dairy cow these days. My mind is a rather boring place to be, devoid of the incessant chatter and occasional brilliance that used to dwell there. It's not that mundane things have replaced the extraordinary or that what was once extraordinary has become mundane. It's more like a resounding silence on all things, great and small.

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Another bipolar voice in the crowd

I confess I don't have access to British TV and thus, didn't have the opportunity to see Sophie Anderton's supposed erratic behavior on a recent reality television show. However, the supermodel did "come out," so to speak, and confessed that she's bipolar. Hm.

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