The Sixtieth Year - Day 138 - Ducks

Yay to mania!

As I am writing this, I am realizing that it’s the mania.

The mania is coming.

My lows are not terribly low, and my highs similarly are not disabling - they just are.

And I feel them now.
I don’t critique myself, judge myself, complain about feeling - I just feel.

Nobody around me critiques, judges, complains - so I can just feel.

Wonder what that looks like to those around me - when I sit in my bed crying all day, but that’s a question for another day.

I just feel it these days

I felt the mania in earnest for the first time in about 2017 - I remember asking D. who had an advanced degree in psychology - “Is that what mania feels like? This is cool!”

He explained that what I was feeling was not mania, because mania made you unsafe to yourself, it made you think that you can do things you can’t actually do - or do and also survive.

I called it “mania light” that year. It was fun - it coincided with the Pokémon app and I did a lot of walking that year.

Mania light went the same way it came. Poof. One day I noticed that it was gone. It was probably a gradual process - but one day it was just gone. My daily step count went from 16K back to 6K or so. It never did go back to the 3K it had been before the mania hit. I was better off overall after the mania than before.

But I missed ‘mania light’.

Life was different after 2017. First, because the world shook up my little family with a vengeance that we’d never seen before in 2018. But we stuck it out. We found the strength in our little community to go on and some of us bonded more tightly. My little tribe became a thing at that time. Basil learned at that time that we were for real, my kid and me. I really do think he meant “for life” when he committed to my daughter. He really loves her for who she is, even though she drives him nuts at times. She’s a nut! She drives me nuts, too. But I love her more than she drives me nuts. I love those quirks that drive me nuts, because I love her! He’s the same way. He loves her for her, warts and all.

The mania may be back - and it’s not mania at all. It’s me. It’s not mania, it’s the audacity of hope.

It’s both! Mania brings hope, hope brings mania, mania brings action, action brings endorphins, endorphins bring happiness - and happiness brings mania. It’s a thing!

What stops the mania? What stops the fun?

One look! One word! One hint that someone is not having fun or that I am perceived wrong. The flick of a wing of a butterfly in the rain forest - and me interpreting it as critique. That was all it took.

He gives love and he takes it away.

I stopped talking to the Ex at the end of 2017, after “mania light” had ended.

But even after I stopped listening to him, I was insecure. The critique, the doubt was real for so many years, way too real.

It may still be real.

But the beauty is, most of the time, I don’t care any more.

The mania lies in the “I don’t care any more.” I am happy, because I am happy. I make myself happy.

Did you see the sunrise this morning? It was beautiful! The only thing that would have made it better, would have been seeing it in nature, not through wires hanging across my back yard. And the colors were amazing - and one day I will figure out where to take pictures of sunrises in this town. And today, the sunrise was great the way it was.

But I wanted to tell you about the ducks! It’s going to be a thing, and I am going to start it!

I have a new office mate at work. We share an actual office. She’ll still have to learn how to use headphones, and we’ll get there. She’s sweet - and new. And she’s tough! She says “I’m sorry” a lot - and it annoys me because it’s just something she says. When she said it about something where it was actually appropriate, I replied “You say that a lot, but I’ll take it as sincere this time. The rest of the time, you don’t have to apologize for things that are not within your control.”

Women need to apologize less! We’re allowed to exist! I don’t apologize unless I am sorry for something any more. I’m not sorry a whole lot any more these days.

I used to be such a nice girl.

Oh, the ducks…

My wonderful work friends have made sure that I still feel included in the hallway even after the powers-that-be moved me out and when there were lunch leftovers they sent my new office mate to “make sure that I was told specifically!”. I love them for saying that - and for telling her. Because it suggests to her a level of caring for me that I would love to have around me. (I don’t care, if it’s not real. Nothing is real :-) )

Oh, the ducks:

One of my old hallway friends just completed her transcriptions for her dissertation. (It hurt a bit that I never finished mine, and I knew that there were a lot of mine fields, yet to come, but I didn’t say any of that. She needed to tell someone who got it - someone who knew that this was more than “just a paper!”. I know - and she needed rah-rah from someone who knew!) I got you, kid! You helped me pick out a coffee mug a while back and I love you! I can be happy for you and rah-rah for you!

Rah-rah for you! I am proud of you!

A little while later, I had the noise-cancelling headphones on because the coworker was on the phone (for work), when she starts gesticulating wildly. I look over to see what she was doing, her gestures are a just about in sync with the African-inspired rhythms I am listening to - is she telling me that I am too loud?

I take off the headphones to hear what she has to say. I had told her in the past that I can’t hear anything when I have the headphones on - if you need me, start gesticulating, I told her. She wanted me, not because she was having a seizure, but because she wanted to share a win with me. She had hired an instructor whom she desperately needed to teach classes on Monday. She wanted rah-rah!

Rah-rah for you! I am proud of you!

It felt empty. I mean, it didn’t feel empty in the sense that they didn’t get what they wanted. They just wanted someone who cared. I needed to mark the rah-rah somehow.

Enter the ducks!

I shall give you a duck!

You make me smile, I give you a duck with a little note. You can keep the note, collect the duck, give the duck to someone else - whatever.

I like it a lot. It will make people smile. It will make me smile, every time I see a duck in an office - or maybe they’ll start hiding them. Who knows. It will cause smiles…until they forbit it. Then we will have secret smiles… duck symbols everywhere. Just wait, the resistance has arrived - and it came carrying ducks.

I went to see the house of the young man who died in April. It was priced at about the range where I could just about afford to buy it.

I told my trusted realtor about the duck idea.

“I like it”, he said. You could have a little glass container of ducks on your desk - and when you have one of those days, you could tell them that you are completely “out of ducks” today.

I can’t wait to start “giving people one of my ducks”. After all, I have only so many ducks to give.

I crack myself up!