Superman and The Mom

11:15am, Monday in June, getting up to 95 degrees

"Really good to see you again!"
"Yeah, you too!"

One neighbor to another, former, neighbor.  As they pass each other on the street.  They are both heading to their cars.  She will drive back to a new place in NJ, a long commute after 2 apartments so close by.  Homes that don't exist for The Mom anymore.

If he is feeling good, he may drive to the grocery store.  And be back in time for alternate side parking to end so he can get his favorite spot in front of the entrance to the courtyard.  He is tall.  He is a Blond Superman.  He doesn't leave his apartment when he is sad.

Almost a year ago, he had started confiding in a Girl.  He told her about his diagnosis.  Mixed Bipolar.  The worst.  He was diagnosed 25 years ago, after a bad episode.

Within a few weeks, he would have the worst episode he had had in 25 years.

During that Sunday day of 350 emails, the world was shifting for the woman with the car.  She had never been so depressed.  She tried to pick up some meds, but the place was closed.  A mixture of self medication (beer & pot) and pills (Prozac or something like it).  The kind that can trigger a worse episode if you don't have the proper diagnosis.

The Mom was so sad and alone.  Except for the Little Boy.  And the Cat.

Instead of buying pills, she bought antifreeze.  That midnight, she sent a text to her ex-husband.  "By the time you get this, all three of us will be gone"

The ex-husband didn't get it til Tuesday morning, when he was driving back from a hiking trip.  By then, the crisis of the moment had been averted.  The Girl who was on the other end of the 350 emails had called the suicide hotline for her friend.  She was just "The Roommate", but had gotten custody for a few hours of the Little Boy.

The Girl heard this exchange between neighbors, knowing that sometimes it is easier to just say hi than to have a real conversation.  They are people connected through the Girl, she knows both of them very well.  Or rather, she USED to know them.  Used to recognize similar symptoms.  Saw the same sadness between them.

And they walk the street easily, saying hi.

The Girl hears this conversation from her window.  And her heart races to see these people.  Wanting them to be happy.  In friendship, wanting the friendship to extend to her as well.  Unaware of how to be friends with them anymore.  Superman and The Mom don't want to be connected through the GIrl anymore.  They have moved on from that weekend in August, that end of the summer.

Here it is, June, and they have moved on, however.

The Girl is still grieving for the loss of the friendships.

Why It Really Did Work Out Well, but for other people

You remember that day we wrote to each other. (350 emails?)  That Sunday.  You hadn't gotten much sleep. The Friday before, you were up for 48 hours straight.

350 emails.  And then staying up, "reaffirming our friendship".

So, that was the night when She sat up with the Antifreeze. ("But the time you get this, all 3 of us will be dead,")  August 19, 2012?  Something like that.

And then more the next few days. Her whirlwind.

And even if all three of them were actually "fine", I DO believe that my intervention (and your support-your heart shaped smile when I felt so completely alone) were good in the longer run.  (Although I suffered, and still do over it)

Well, the second part of this is about LOVE.

The line from "Nights in White Satin", about the letters I've written, never meaning to send.  [LIWNMTS}

I NEVER stopped writing to you.  I just stopped SENDING emails to you.

Remember I wrote a story about "Invisible Magic"?  I randomly thought about a present for you.  And came up with an idea that I'd write a story a week, every week, until you were ready to talk to me.  A year.  2?  As many as it would take.  So I started this blog.  And lots of others.

The Six Degrees of M was a way to convince you to appreciate the group.  A smart guy like you (if I were you, I'd be dubious about them too).

And so, I ended up getting a table at the M convention.  My best friend met her soul mate there.  Bringing them together brings them both SOOOOO much love.  They are "open" to stuff like that-in ways that I'm not sure that I am.  And they are stupid in LOVE.  Silly.  And I'm happy for them.  And I want you to know that even if you and I don't have a direct connection---- then at LEAST 4 other people (R and E, and my friend K and the guy H_I should go through your record collection, CSNY. . . . and remember how we were going to listen to the Mamas and the Papas next time-that one too!)

4 people are made happy from our friendship so far.  Maybe me sometimes.  Maybe you.  I have no idea.  So far. . .

(And the song, "Right as the Rain" just came on)

Brief Visits

Yesterday, I saw R for a few minutes.

I pass by your window everyday.

And when you leave (whenever you do) you pass by mine.

I heard someone on the radio today, who has a "Bipolar Diagnosis".  He said how people around him are confused.

I am.

And I WILL smile when I see you!

(I still want to get through to you.  You are a nice person.  I don't understand what it is you are fighting. Why you seem to be fighting me.  Or yourself.  I'm on your side.  It will always be alright.)

I miss you.

The Definition of Love

Dear Grown Man,

I remember when I was a young teen, after my Father passed away.  Trying to figure out a definition of Love.  Magazines and girls at school were going on about it, romance and sex and “the right one”.  There was also friends and family and my 8th grade teacher, who merited a special place in my heart.  But what was the common denominator?  Somehow I arrived at something so perfect, I’ve never been able to let it go.
If someone dies, and your world is shattered.

That is Love.

I have been lucky that many people have fit into that category in my life.  My best friend Julie, my Mom, the old neighbor lady Gladys with the 300 dolls.  
Love to me has always been measured in potential loss.
Not what I have at the moment, but what I am afraid to lose.

When she had her “whirlwind”, you referred to her as “a really messed up chick”.   No compassion. I saw her posting something on FB, “It’s disgusting” about the school shooting.  Maybe it’s a kind of amnesia, but definitely a lack of empathy and compassion.
You see, life is impossibly difficult for people.  And we are all pushed to extremes.  How we ultimately react is within our control (we hope), but there is unlimited rage out there.  

We need to be compassionate beforehand, before it gets to that stage.  We need to be kind.

After the whirlwind, when I went to Massachusetts and wasn’t going to come back, I thought about you. I thought about you constantly.  What if someday . . .

By then you had mentioned things to me.  We had brought up the subject.

Parking your car at Fairway, I said the word “S-------” out loud for the first time in 25 years.  I thought to myself, “You’re a grownup. You can say it out loud, just like anyone else, and it won’t mean anything.  It doesn’t mean anything to him,”

And you wrote me about the singer, who had written a song (maybe an album?) in a hotel room.  The lowest point in his life.  And I wrote back, “The next time you think about it, I have just one word for you.  DON’T”  And you responded with a line of question marks.  I reminded you how you had brought it up before, it was something you struggle with, correct?  “It turns out that it is very good to know you, Miss ____ ____.  Very good,”

And I have held those words as sacred.

Everytime I doubt you.  Everytime you run and hide in your cave and I am lonely and want someone to talk to, but instead I have to go back to my room and cry, I think of those words.

And so in Massachusetts, after you had stopped writing to me and I to you.  After I thought you had deserted me.  Before you told me that you had your worst episode in 25 years.  I thought about you.

I thought of you there, alone, in an apartment.  With real metal in your hands, not just the pantomime of a gun.  I thought about what it would be to know you were there, alone.  And hearing about it afterwards.

And then I thought about you calling me.  What if I had to do it all again?  To be the one to read the words that told me that everything was in place right in front of you?

(The horrible echo: “The antifreeze that I had bought to drink.  You wouldn’t have been able to stop me if I had drunk the antifreeze I bought”  Where is it now?  “Next To Me,” )

And this terrible horrible awful scene played out further in my mind.  Because you are taller and obviously stronger than me,  I could never wrestle it out of your hands.  The cops couldn’t break in.  But maybe I could talk to you.  Get you to put it down.  Get you to not feel alone. Diffuse the bomb.  Starting it all now.  As if anyone can save anyone else.  (At least I can try)

And then I thought back to not being there for you.  I had been planning to cut off all contact with anyone who had a hint of mental illness (diagnosed or not). Granted, with all my crazy artist friends, this would leave me tremendously lonely.  But I couldn’t take being that close to death. So what if we never spoke again? Life would be easier for us both, right?

And I realized, even if there was nothing I could do, that I already cared too much about you. (And about A. for that matter)  I couldn’t stop being friends (or trying anyway).  I would not be able to ignore you in the hallway, or turn my face away from your beautiful smile.

I don’t know what my role will be, or if it will cause me pain (or how much).  I love you too much to lose you.  And I will do everything in my power to keep you alive on this earth and in my life.

So I know that I email you sometimes in the middle of a workday, and you respond “Very Busy”.  But I wish you could figure out your other issues, so that you can respond to me when you are NOT busy.  And do some "work" from your side.  Because choosing to keep you in my life was a very difficult decision, and everyday your Depression makes it harder.  

And not having you as a friend is like not breathing.  It’s not something that I can do.  “You gotta go where your heart says go, isn’t that so?” said the great philosopher, Lyle Lovett.  And believe me, in Massachusetts, I was ready to let you go.  Speeding down a country road, trying to shake you from my mind.  But I couldn’t do it.  I wrote to you, saying how much I missed you.  And you wrote back immediately, saying you were just about to write to me.

I haven’t told you, but it was then that I accepted everything. Whatever your future holds, I’m there and I want to support you to be the best person you can be.  So I really don’t know what you are afraid of.  I think there may be a little agoraphobia, or you hesitate to “socialize” with people when you are feeling down.  You have darkness, I know.  

You asked me if I know, if I really know what it feels like to want to destroy yourself.  Trust me, I know.  (Someday, I’ll tell you my story) It’s all terrifying.  

And there is only one thing that can destroy it.

Invisible Magic. (i.e.Love)  The kind that will persist beyond all the petty annoyances and will remind us that we are not alone, no matter how crazy we think we are.

I still Love A.  I love you. I wish someone had been able to communicate Love to that boy who shot those 20 children and 6 adults.

And I cannot lose you.