My demon has returned.
I felt him today when I got up. Not immediately but, as I stood there, making coffee, the tips of his gnarled, organic fingers suddenly latched onto the rungs of my spine. First one, then the other, starting at the small of my back, pulling himself up my spinal cortex like some hideous insect. He took me so fast this time. It was breathtaking. I don’t ever remember him coming over me so swiftly or with such overwhelming force. But then, pain is something we don’t remember very well, isn’t it? Perhaps it was like this every time he arrived?
Now it feels as if he’s looking through my eyes: everything I read, everything I listen to hurts, makes me cry, rips at my entrails. I’m a huge open, walking wound with no skin to stop me from bleeding out, no myelin sheath to cover the nerve endings, no armour, no judgment.
It’s been more than ten years since I last sailed this waters – since last I cowered under his suffocatingly dark presence, but I never fooled myself that he was gone for good – he’s in my genes. It’s why I never had children. It’s why I don’t have lovers anymore. Still, ten years off meds is a long time, and I know I’m fortunate for such a lasting respite. I thought it was me managing myself properly, but perhaps I was taking credit for nothing more than a decade long cycle.
Now I have a decision to make: to medicate or not to medicate? Aye, there’s the rub. Because once the Tegretol has started to work, that appalling presence will dissipate along with all creative thought. I won’t be able to write anymore.
I’ve just begun a three-month sabbatical from teaching with the specific aim of writing – finishing Beautiful Losers and trying to make headway on a number of other writing projects.
I wonder whether the timing was coincidental or connected? Perhaps part of me just doesn’t want the freedom of vast stretches of time in which to write? Perhaps I am inherently self-destructive in this subtle way? Perhaps it is just brain chemistry and the quirk of nature – the tipping point, the cycle of the cyclone.
In any case, things may go quiet here for a while. I apologize, thank you for your company when you visit and read, and beg your forbearance.
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