The birthday girl – I call this shot “Soulful Lucy”
Two years ago on March 18th, a gorgeous, loving Scottish Collie was born!
Forty-six years ago on March 18th, I made my Earthly debut.
Chillin’ with my Dad
The words of Toni Childs (one of my favorite musicians) come to mind:
Let me welcome you to this world
And let me tell you of my world
How it is and how it is
You want to know now?
I want to say that it’s a bad world
And tell you that it’s so, so bad
I don’t want to disappoint you my child
But this world is gonna take you gonna take you by storm, child
You will be hurt and there will be pain, yeah
But there will be love just the same, yeah
Welcome to the world, my boy and girl
Welcome to the world, welcome to the world
Toni Childs, Welcome to the World
This song is from Toni’s amazing album The Woman’s Boat. The video of Welcome to the World is mega-surreal, to say the very least! Directed by the famous Italian Stefano Salivati, I guarantee you’ve never seen anything quite like it.
As a child I had some memorable birthday parties…
FIFTH BIRTHDAY
When I was five my parents hired “Archie”, a creepy clown who was a big hit!
I look a tad perplexed, don’t I?
TWELFTH BIRTHDAY
When I turned twelve, I invited my closest friends to come over to my house for chocolate cake. On a whim, everyone except for latecomer Tina dressed up in my Mom’s eccentric 70’s outfits. We slathered on grease paint makeup left over from Halloween. Since we lived in Southern California, naturally we went to the beach. Along the edge of the Pacific Ocean we played in the sand like toddlers, and built sandcastles. It was one of my best, most carefree birthdays.
My alter ego…I’m not sure what look I was going for, exactly, but I sure liked those black dots!
SWEET SIXTEENTH BIRTHDAY
My sixteenth birthday was a mess. It was 1986, the year I was a spoiled brat. I demanded that my parents throw me a birthday party at an expensive restaurant.
I bullied Mom and Dad into shelling out far too much money for mediocre Mexican food at Santa Monica’s Huntley Hotel. The management failed to tell us they were in the process of redecorating the dining room, so it was super-shabby instead of its usual state of super-sleek.
If you stare hard you’ll note the blotchy walls; at that point I didn’t care what the room looked like; I wanted the excruciating thing over!
Single and lonely like many sixteen-year-olds, the one person I wanted to attend my shindig was nowhere to be seen. “Red”, my first real love, had dumped me a few weeks before my birthday. He decided to date one of my closest friends and she had no problem with it.
To top things off, my parents surprised me with what appeared to be a singing gigolo named “Mr Wonderful”. Mr. Wonderful was anything but wonderful. I would’ve preferred a singing gorilla, a singing banana slug, or even a singing clown.
Gotta sing! Mr. Wonderful, the singing telegram
FORTY-THIRD BIRTHDAY
Then there was my manic birthday party: March 18, 2013. While slowly tapering off meds (something I DO NOT recommend to anyone!) I dropped from 155 to 120 pounds. I couldn’t see that I had become almost skeletal. There’s a lot more I could add about this time in my life, but in a nutshell, I had taken my weight loss way too far.
Here I am during the hypomanic phase of my tapering experiment. Four months later I’d be hospitalized for bipolar depression and ask for electroconvulsive therapy yet again.
Lesson learned! I never demonize my meds!
It’s going to be hard to top this year’s birthday after what happened on my 45th birthday, but I’m going to enjoy it. I’m going to forget about making comparisons, those odious things.
And who knows what might happen?
***Awesome St. Patrick’s Day Update***
I received a fantastic gift this morning. I was notified by Huffington Post that my first article was published!
If you could visit this link to my article “Postpartum Bipolar: The Invisible Postpartum Mood Disorder” and comment/like/share/“Become A Fan”, that would be FANTASTIC!
(Not to sound greedy, but the more comments etc. I receive, the better.)
The article was chosen as a Featured Blog Post!
As long as it’s a relatively drama-free day, there’s chocolate for me, and a dog treat for Lucy, I’ll be extremely grateful.
Great show, catchy song, hip band…but what do you think of that dress???
Thanks Mom for your encouragement & love!
Dyane’s memoir Birth of a New Brain – Healing from Postpartum Bipolar Disorder will be published by Post Hill Press in Fall, 2017.