Happy Friday Everyone!
I’m glad it’s here because Spring Break begins for my kids. I’ll enjoy a respite from the frantic morning rush, as well as a breather from the passive-aggressive minivan brigade en route to school.
Today I was interviewed by a psychologist-in-training. She’s interviewing mothers with bipolar disorder for her dissertation, and she made quite a trek to reach these Deliverance-esque mountains. We spent an intense ninety minutes while I answered her questions. I was thankful she was very compassionate, because I discussed the toughest, most disturbing years of my life. I was drained afterwards, but I’m glad that I did it because I know her research will help other clinicians understand moms with bipolar a little better.
Meanwhile it has been a weird week. Well, it’s always weird around here, but it was a touch weirder than usual.
Bad surprise #1 happened Wednesday morning. I woke up around 4:30 a.m. as nature called. I needed to answer her fast or regress to six-years-old and wet the bed. On my way back to bed, I paused in the doorway and spotted a puddle on the floor – ooops, Lucy had an accident. It happens once in a while, and it was actually a blessing in disguise. When I crouched down to clean it up, I saw movement to my left. I gasped inwardly, as I didn’t want to wake everyone up, especially Lucy, who was out of sight on the other side of the bed.
It was Zoe, Rilla’s Syrian hamster. Somehow Zoe had escaped from her cage and she was having a splendid time exploring the house. Miraculously Lucy missed her spree. I hadn’t handled the little creature much up to that point, but I immediately scooped her up before Lucy awoke. I thought she’d wriggle out of my hands, but she was calm.
I thanked God over and over that I was the first one to find Zoe; if Lucy had seen her, Zoe would’ve become a Scooby snack and Rilla and Avonlea would have been devastated. (It turned out that there was a faulty part of her cage. She leapt five feet down from its perch without hurting herself, another small miracle.) While I categorized this as a bad surprise, it did have a happy ending. Hurrah!
Good surprise #1 was “Hector and the Search for Happiness”. This was a wonderful film! I watched it on my portable DVD player with headphones while the kids were glued to the insipid Nick Jr.’s “Austin and Ally”, a show that makes me want to scream.
“Hector and the Search for Happiness” is about Hector, of course. He’s a burned-out psychiatrist (what a surprise, eh?) who goes on a pilgrimage to research how to help his patients (and himself) be happy. I don’t want to give away spoilers, but it was unique as well as a great reminder about what creates true happiness. Some of my favorite actors are in it (Toni Colette, Stellan Skarsgard, Jean Reno and Christopher Plummer, still going strong in his 80’s!) and actors who I was unfamiliar with, namely the outstanding lead Simon Pegg. I definitely give it a “thumbs up”.
On to bad surprise #2. Some of you know I work out almost daily on my beloved Nordic Track Elliptical. Yesterday as soon as I hopped on it, the flywheel made a ghastly screeching sound. I had to stop, which sucked as I really needed an endorphin boost. Craig came downstairs to see what caused a noise that could wake the dead. He took the elliptical apart to discover a huge amount of fluffy pink insulation material stuffed inside the flywheel that wasn’t supposed to be there – surprise! It was jumbled up with scraps of paper. You can guess where this is going, right?
My workout machine had become a haven to RATS!!!
Oh. My. God.
Grooooooososssssss! At least there was no rat poo in it as far as I could tell, and there were no rats or parts of rats in the elliptical. That was a major plus, yes indeed. Our home is rat-free; we had sent our rats to the afterlife long ago. But this was definitely a bad surprise, and there’s no way I can put a good spin on it!
I certainly can’t end on that note. Good surprise #2 came from my seven-year-old last night. Rilla and I were talking about odds and ends. She said, “I look up to you, Mommy and I want to be a writer too. I want to be like you!”
I was so moved by what Rilla said, because I haven’t exactly been Mother of the Year since her birth in 2007; the year I was diagnosed with postpartum bipolar less than two months after she was born. To hear that she wanted to be like me (she knows I have bipolar, and yet she didn’t let that get in the way of anything) was beyond awesome. I was also surprised that my writing has made a positive impression upon her.
After all the crap I’ve put this child through as a result of my mental illness, I harbor residual guilt. I worry about the trauma my girls have suffered from bipolar-related events. So you can imagine how cool it was for me to hear her words, to feel her soft arms wrap themselves around me in a hug, and to hold her small hands with their tiny, scraggly fingernails….the hands of a budding writer.
Until next Friday, I send you my love, and some good surprises that will make you smile.
xoxo,
Dyane
Dyane Harwood 
You must be logged in to post a comment.