"Goodnight, Tammy"

"Goodnight, Tammy"

You knocked and pushed the door open (I think you can see that I'm sitting on the green couch, when I sit with the light on).  The door gets swollen and hard to shut when it is cold outside and overly hot in the apartment.  It was a sweet thing, your father tends to think you are trying to stall, or that you are bothering me.  You are the most fun person I know and it was good to say good night.

When I first saw you this morning, your Dad & you were bundling up to go sledding in Ft Tryon Park (with, what's that kid's name?) I was going downtown to drop off some art for your Mom's theater show.

I saw you a few hours later, I was coming back and you guys were all going out. (Seems like the only time we see each other!) You were going on a tour of Superbowl Blvd, and then I guess you guys went to Whole Foods.

Your father came back & struggled with getting the internet to work (he's easily stressed!) and you and I played for a while.  I have bags of "stuff", I am a bit of a packrat, saving bits and pieces for us to play with.  Found cardboard bits, discounted bolts of cloth, tupperware containers from restaurants. You unwrapped a purple velvet long piece and I found a sheer golden one.  You are obsessed with things having powers, I declared sun and fire power, you said yours was a dark laser.

We were doing magic tricks, clumsily hiding folded up Post-Its between our fingers.  I showed you a trick where I had one hiding in my mouth, and tried to show that I moved it from my hand into my mouth.  You liked it a lot and wanted to show your dad; he was (overly) stressed and was trying to get you to eat dinner.

This last week was maybe the last time I walked you to the bus (he's just tired of paying).  Had you stay home alone while he went out with Amber.  As an "experiment".  You watched TV ("What's the problem?")

You can handle it.  (Even though when you first went out to meet Dagny & her Mom on the street, you panicked and buzzed to be let back up instead of just waiting.  But you are cool with it.  (I'm just sad to see you don't NEED me as much, and you are now being instructed to "pretend" I'm not home.  Less time together will be sad for me.

Your Mom asked if I knew of any rooms in the hood which might be available.  I wanted to say, this one.  I want to be out by summer, maybe April. I'd volunteer to move in with her, (to see more of you, frankly) but I can't trust her . . . (although I do love her as a friend, dearly). She broke up with Phil and I wonder how she's doing-mental health wise. Seems okay & stable.  I hope she stays that way.

The old man (Henri) down the hall, the one with the walker and the bad scoliosis, died last July.  I just found out by asking another neighbor (Mar--/Mer--??).

I had a realization that L might be dead too.  (He is, for all I know. We used to see him with his dog sometimes.  And his car parked outside.  But if his car isn't there . . . Is it bad to say I'm glad?  That I've filled my life with words and worlds apart from him.  And how much room that someone who is Bipolar takes up in your life.  How much room he and your Mom took over from me that summer.  Glad to have my own space in my head.)

This had been a perfect moment here, these past few years, I don't want it to end.  I don't want your Dad to get married, because then I'll leave.  And you'll be alone, more alone with them.  Even worse when they have a kid. I want you to always be able to turn to me.  Especially for pillow fights and making art.
I'm so glad you aren't a brat!!

Catch up Kid Art from last week!!

Sea Monster and Dinosaur along a road

I did most of this one, but you drew the golden hot dog with silver mustard.  There is an ant whose word cloud says: "Do the Harlem Shake!"

Drum kit from last week, after your father had tried to give you a lesson.

A maze.  Amazing.

Robot Square Drawing

The Last Email (Again)

My Dear Little Boy,

I am writing to you from the highs of Castle Village.

Yesterday was my last email with him, the BiPolar Bear.  (Again).

There will always be another last, another final, another complete and permanent Good-Bye.

The circumstances are as follows:
He was alone in his apartment all last week, and the week before.
I had gone to the party, thanked him and we began writing (again) with some regularity.

Him:

I immensely appreciate all of this, I really do.  I read your e-mails carefully and sympathetically.  I guess I sometimes just don't understand what you want from me.  I don't know that I have any great insights or whatever to impart during any discussions.  The past year for me has been the worst in my life.  I have largely avoided people, even some who are very close to me.  I'm slowly recovering, but very slowly.  Mom's passing was a hit of the most imaginable sort and I've been concerned with getting my OWN head together.  I have had no energy to devote to other people.  Please understand that.  If you had met me first a few years ago, you wouldn't recognize me now.

I subscribe to your views about humans' being social and all that.

The next party?  No idea.  That one last week took a huge amount of preparation and effort, which is probably a big part of the reason that it rolled so well.  And it DID roll well.

Now that's a pretty long e-mail from [last name}, no?  : )

Me:

That IS a long email, THANKS!!!!

I guess all I want from you is  . . . this.  Words.  Conversation in person, when you are up to it.

No offense, but I don't expect that you are really especially brilliant or have any great insights.  And that's fine.  I expect you to be  . . . human.

He responded:
It will happen. I PROMISE.  In good time, it will.

Twice a week.  And then he wrote on Thursday.  And then on Friday.

I wrote him a note, asking to see him in person.  How, after all these emails, it would be better.  (More "normal", although I know he hates that word.  Maybe I was provoking him.)  Regardless, he did not answer.  He also did not tell me he was going out (which he usually DOES when we are in the middle of an email conversation).  He simply did not respond.  He writes back the next morning (happy cheerful) that he was out all night, left at 6am and was just returning.  And that he needed some sleep before going to the opera with his piano teacher.

As always, I am glad you are going out and socializing.  But you must see my side of things.

You tell me to be patient for our friendship; however, I simply don't believe you anymore.  Nor have I any reason to trust you.

This email thing is not normal or healthy; I must exist as something to bolster your male ego or something.  And the idea of that hurts me tremendously.

In fact, here's a challenge, a DARE. 

If you are sincere in your efforts, then *call* or *invite* me somewhere. In person.  Like normal people.  Invest some of this marvelous social energy in our friendship.

Otherwise, let's please stop this charade.  I have no interest in being friends with a computer.  Or an uptight robot (which you appear to be)   ;P

Last night, I came to the realization (again) about what a stupid game this is.

Very Sincerely,

Me

Then he wrote:
Oh, stop it.  I've really grown cold to these neurotic things.  This pisses me off.  Stop this, OK?

And I, fed up from the night before, decide I've had enough.  That the emails are not what I want.  Either a normal relationship or nothing.  And I choose nothing.  Because he is making me crazy.  And I have no room for that.  

It sounds like he intends for us to be in-person friends, no?  Granted, I'm a girl, but I've done everything I can to strip away sexuality from the equation.  

Humans are complex.  Conversations are as well.  I am recording this as much for my sake as for yours.  

PS Last year, something similar happened.  I walked away, almost relieve to have him gone.  And he wrote to me a few months later.  And invited me over (!!!) for two hours.  We listened to music.

And we had a normal conversation.  (And we have rarely had one since.)

PPS  I do count the relationship in HOURS.  As of this moment, maybe 15 hours total conversation (all the talking in the street-he ALWAYS shakes my hand and greets me with a warm smile) and easily 3000 emails.

PPPS If you are questioning me, don't worry, I question my own judgment.  What if he just does not want to be friends with me?  What if he is normal and I am "crazy"?  Yet, is it crazy to want to talk to someone in person?  I cannot use him as my point of reference.

FINAL RANT: ADDICTION

8:51am, Sunday Morning, peaceful acceptance (which flows into realistic thinking!!)

"More or Less of the Invisible Man"

My Dearest Boy,

I want to tell you about my Bipolar Friend.  You call him Superman, but I know him only as a man who wears a cloak of Invisibility.  Needless to say, it is difficult to be friends with him.

There is a deal I made with myself; I will only allow myself to *try* to be friends with him IF I can maintain an equilibrium with it.  Do you know what that means?  Like a single steady path, a line, like on a heart monitor.  Not too high, not too many peaks or mountains, because for every good moment, there will be a moment that is twice as painful.  My DEAL is about trying to keep everything mildly enjoyable and trying to support (from a distance) when he is having a bad day.  For all my other friends, I expect them to be there for ME, too.

The reason this relationship is different from other, is that my Bipolar friend disappears.

So I cannot expect ANYTHING from him.  I can only appreciate when he is there.  And NOT allow myself to be disappointed when he disappears again.

This week was especially hard, just when I think he's THERE, he wakes up and forgets about me.  Or the day dawns into another beginning, where he loses his voice again.  I was mad, and it is worse when he tries to explain, tries to be nice.  (This is when I'm thinking rationally, expecting him to be like other humans that I decide to never talk to him again.  But I always decide not to.  That my life is better with him as a friend.  I always forgive him. But I don't know if it is a matter of me aspiring to infinite grace or me being a complete co-dependent IDIOT.

I warn you, if my friend is making me feel crazy (from his unpredictable behavior), then I cannot imagine what havoc your Mom will (unintentionally) create in you.  The Evil Spell is SOOOOOO very evil because it is the beautiful moments (and the moments where they love you) that make the other painful moments so heart-wrenching.

For instance, he wrote me a note earlier this week.  "Hey!  I have some leftover Christmas lights and some scrap paper.  Would you like me to drop it off?"

This nearly made me cry for a few reasons:
1) He is thinking of me, AND reaching out to me without me asking!!!
2) He is saving things for me (like I have repeatedly asked)
3) These things are the first "gifts" (I am someone who creates gifts, and saves anything that a friend might like.  I have in my room: a bottle of FULL Olive Oil, a bottle of nearly empty olive oil, both expensive.  A book of delicate tissue I have not written yet.  And many hundreds of Mousetraps.  An album of 3Penny Opera and Chicago sung in German. And many other things, waiting for him.)
4) He wants to BRING THEM OVER in person.  (remember, since April of last year-it's now February-I have probably seen this man fewer than 30 times.  And of those, only 3 times have we intentionally hung out for 2 hours.  Maybe (including trips to the store and me sitting with him in his car) we have had conversations lasting 30 minutes maybe 10-15 times.  Maybe we have met on the street or in the hallway and talked (mostly under 5 minutes) maybe 30 times. We have exchanged THOUSANDS of emails.
5) He has NEVER come over to my apartment to bring me something.
6) He has NEVER asked me to meet him (except for that one time in his apartment)
7) (This is my Loneliness talking)  He wrote me the night before Valentine's Day, saying he would come by in the morning.  Recently, I had written trying to gently suggest that I would love to have coffee with him (and his wife) every once in a while. LIKE FRIENDS!!  So I was really looking forward to a quick, successful interaction with him.  Pleasant.  It's not about the giving of the gifts, but the gesture.  THE EFFORT.  He doesn't seem to make an effort with me. (But I can't tell, and I can't force him.  Or even if I try, it won't work)
8) I was counting on hearing about my art acceptance or rejection on the 13th (your mom's bday) and hadn't heard back.  I was VERY SAD about that.  (I feel like I try SO HARD, to get a job, to do art, to make friends with him, to be a good friend to you-especially when I hear your father yelling-and I feel like I have too many moments of rejection within all this.  And no successes.  Very sad, indeed.  And the only option I have is to keep fighting.)


The results:
1) He does NOT contact me in the morning
2) I cry repeatedly about my terrible situation
3) I decide to go out to the "One Billion Women Dancing" event in Columbus Circle and then MOMA's PS1.
4)  After the dancing, I got an email saying that my recruiter AND HER BOSS are working on submitting me to 2 projects.  And that they LOVE me.  (Made me cry in a good way)
5)At the museum, enjoying myself, I got an email about being accepted into the Art Exhibition.  I AM SO HAPPY!!
6) His wife wrote about how busy she is and how she (which apparently means him too) can't come to the concert for which I can get comps.  (They met Dawn last weekend).  I believe that she is busy, although I feel like they have also told me how lonely they feel as well.  And I feel like I have a right to be mad and to pull away from them both.  Because they don't try with me.  Ever.  (Except for the brunch and the pizza, which is apparently a once in a lifetime thing)
7)I wrote back (not hurt about Saturday, but wanting to tell them my good news)  So happy.
8) He wrote back.  Apologizing about not getting a good night's sleep.


I JUST REALIZED THAT OUR FRIENDSHIP IS A DRUG ("SUGARMAN"/"SUGARBUZZ")

I love when he communicates to me (BUZZ) and I crash when he disappoints me. I even am delusional when I think how "faithful" I am overlooking all his CRAP (when he doesn't write back to me)

GIVE HIM A TIME OUT.  2 weeks.  Do NOT SHARE THE GOOD NEWS WITH HIM.  Don't invite him to the opening.

NEED TO TALK TO PT ABOUT AA!!!  It's not healthy for me to be his friend!!  (At least not right now.  DO a time out, so maybe I can break it off, fooling myself into thinking that it isn't cold turkey.  BECAUSE I did do that back in December (when he was cold about Thanksgiving).  And I have been SO HAPPY without him in my life.  And just a few email exchanges (a few 13th night and more on the 14th!!  And then NOTHING.)  Make me WASTE more energy on him.

BECAUSE HE ONLY REACHES OUT TO ME WHEN HIS SYMPTOMS GO OUT OF CONTROL.  When he doesn't get enough sleep.  When his meds aren't working.  And when they do, he doesn't tlak to me. I WAS HOPING TO BE HELPFUL TO HIM AND HIS WIFE.  BUT I do not have the type of relationship with them that will be of any help.

I have to fight to keep him out of my life.  (PT help me)

Dear R& L,
I am writing this to say goodbye.
I have attempted to be friends with you for several months.
L is a good person and I wanted to break through whatever walls and issues he has to deal with due to the Bipolar Diagnosis.
LANCE ONLY WRITES TO ME WHEN HE DOES NOT GET ENOUGH SLEEP OR HIS SYMPTOMS ARE GETTING BAD.
R,
I need to tell you why I was so determined to be friends with L.  How we exchanged HUNDREDS of emails while you were in Poland (don't worry, this is not a confession of an affair or anything-he has always been a gentleman).  R texted me about having Antifreeze that she had bought, intending to DRINK.  She sent a text to T saying that "All 3 of us will be gone by the time you get this".
It was a CS attempt, however clumsy and I had to call the S hotline for her.  Cops took her away and she walked out of the hospital, furious at me.  She then went away.

But L came over, for 5 minutes, to support me.  (ANd I will always be grateful).  We emailed more, and he even sent me music.  (It was wonderful.  And knowing what a wonderful man he is and knowing that when he can-he can be an amazing person and friend.  It is moments like that that tear me apart, and stop me from cutting him out of my life entirely)

He has never fully discussed what happened in September.  What set him off or why he needed to change his meds.  I suspect it was a combination of his meds, jetlag and being involved with R's whirlwind that brought him to a difficult crossroads.

I want to give you guys an ultimatum.  If both of you, or just one or the other want to continue a friendship with me, I want to have some sort of conversation/update once a month.
(Are you listening to yourself?  When you start bargaining, trying to imagine that if you set careful boundaries, then everything will be okay?  They are going to agree.  And then not do it!!)

I have no idea where that guy is.  The one who wrote to me in August.  I write, hoping he will answer.  He came out of hiding a few days ago and then went right back into his disappearing act.

L, I don't want you to torture me anymore.  I do not want to share my good news with you.  I do not want to WANT TO make you smile anymore.  Because I do not think you want to make me smile; I do not think you CAN be the type of friend that I want and require.

I CANNOT ACCEPT YOU INTO MY LIFE AGAIN BECAUSE YOU DISAPPOINT ME.
YOU CAUSE ME MORE PAIN THAN GOOD FEELINGS.
I AM NOT GOOD FOR YOU EITHER, because you would try harder to reach out to me when you are on your own equilibrium.
(THiS is why you cannot keep friends)

Go away.  I can't take this anymore.  You are a drug and I am addicted to the idea that we can be friends. But this is NOT a friendship I want in my life.

This is NOT a friendship I want to have in my life
I do NOT want this
You cannot call
You cannot make the effort I want you to make.
You cannot live up to who I want you to be!!