-1e

I'm in a daze. I can't whip three thoughts into line. I was worn out from long, long days, and now I feel fine.

I feel fine! I've got to tell you, some of the time I feel like skipping. A weight has been taken from my shoulders. There will be other weights but sometimes you have to stop thinking beyond the day in hand and let it all slide.

I tried to do some figures the other day -- poker figures -- but I felt slow and old. Maths is the only thing that I find I stumble over where I once wouldn't. Sometimes I wonder whether I have less acuity than I did, but I think I only ever had sharp wits, rather than a sharp mind.

(But yesterday I did a special thing for a sub. Headlines in our paper's system are measured in ems, and I get a score in ems for how well a head fits. If you fit it precisely, you see no score at all. I had a headline in two decks and nailed it first take with no over or under. You wouldn't do that often.)

So I trudged through it, cutting and pasting figures in a spreadsheet, and pretending to be learning. And two hours ish of push/fold. Well, the best route to overcoming fear of incompetence is becoming competent. Or become full of shit.

Which seems easier.

But getting through it feels better, and understanding, or at the very least feeling you understand, feels better still.

I've never been a person who is happier not to know, and I don't feel bad about it, although it's as much use as a sixth toe.

But I am not killing myself over it. I know it is just another road to walk along, and how can you break yourself to pieces over how fast you can walk?

***

I look in the mirror and some old guy looks back at me, but wait, I feel like I'm 24 so can't we just pretend?

Anyway, you know the good thing about being manic? It's like you really see the good in everyone else, and you know what I realise? These are not two poles. This is who I am and the rest is when I'm off my game.

And yeah, I've spent five years drowning in it, basically insane, but there's always a road out, which you can walk, no matter how fast you can walk. I've been crushed into a ball, hollowed out and beaten. I reached a point of no return, and I've returned.

What feels weird is that I cannot get down. I feel free from the need for it. Some of that was growing in me when I had arranged to go home but jeez I have had good medicine for what has ailed me.

And you know what that is? Sometimes you have a headline, and you cannot squeeze or poke it, because it's a whole em out. You just have to change a word. It's easy when you have reached the moment when you know that (or it may be hard to do, but it's easy to accept that that is what you are doing); it becomes easy to believe that is what you were always going to do. You do not know that you will write a good head, but that's of no consequence. You are content that you are doing what you are doing, and sometimes, when you have further realised that you must wipe out the whole line and begin again, you are content too with that.

posted by Dr Zen @ 9:23 pm