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No Formula For Love
In the face of trying to understand something that seems incomprehensible with that sort of elusive, water through your fingers sort of grasping, which is how I think of mental illness, which words do you use? What do you say that pierces the veil of shadows that often seem to hang in their eyes? It’s… Continue reading
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little big things
“Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good” 1st Peter 4:19 ESV I knew someone who once said to me that he would wonder why God had broken his brain, why he went from being fine one day and adrift the next. Yet he… Continue reading
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Three types of ordinary
The ordinary. Nothing that anyone would ever conceive of as treacherous. That’s why it’s a humbling and diminishing ordeal to be undone by the ordinary. And for me it’s almost tangible, visceral in ways that I can’t help but be reminded that my ordinary can be a tempest. As I was dramatically and bluntly reminded… Continue reading
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Me and My Crazy Self
I hate the designation of mental illness. Loathe might be a better choice, yet I’m forced, for lack of a better term, to use it. Those two words, “mental illness,” hang around my neck like a millstone. The cynic in me even prefers “crazy,” but I’ve never truly settled, truly felt peace with a way… Continue reading
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A Life Lived Together
Candor. Truth-telling. It’s never been my way, it lets people in, and that can mean strangers in the house. Candor has never been a word in my lexicon. I’m a man who measures phone conversations in syllables. Yet, I am—so it seems—at my most eloquent when I am most honest. Truth has an elegance that can… Continue reading
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My Time With Mental Illness
Most Friday’s or Saturday’s (pre-pandemic) I would spend my daytime hours at a local cigar shop, reading, with perhaps a bit of writing tossed in; a weekly moments recovery. Ironically, I spent much of my days alone. I don’t work. I can’t. It’s not that I don’t want to, but mental illness and I can’t seem to get out of each other’s way. So, in my quiet corner,… Continue reading