Next time I'll be braver

Over the last week, I've shared a lot of changes happening in my life with those close to me: my upcoming move, change in career, and changes in living situations. The fnalization and fast arrival of these changes is starting to cause me a little bit of stress - where am I going to live in a few weeks? Am I going to be successful on my new career path? Why am I leaving behind something so good? I'm also in a blessed spot with my illness; while it affects everything I do, I am managing it through medication, lifestyle choices, and love. By the grace of God, the universe, my family, lithium, and sheer, beautiful, shimmering luck, I am in this blessed spot.

I'm still adjusting to this spot, however, especially as it relates to the many decisions I have made and will make over the next few weeks about my future. When I was really sick, I had to learn to prioritize my health and the limitations that my illness places on me over everything else - I had no choice but to come home and go to bed instead of go out on a Friday night if I was feeling any less than 100%. Skipping meals or drinking too much were non-options with disastrous consequences. For the last year, I've kept myself happy, safe, and healthy largely by trying to avoid situations, stimuli, and people that might cause me any modicum of additional stress, pain, or emotional burdens. There are tradeoffs to this strategy, of course, but when you're health is as precarious as mine was for several years, eventually you stop seeing the tradeoffs. You just see the survival path. You see the way to make it out alive.

Now more paths are open to me. I have more resilience. I have faced some difficult emotional situations without falling apart. I am getting better, braver, and stronger. With resilience comes temptation and with temptation, risk: Maybe I can seek a reward (financial, professional, personal) by pushing myself a little bit harder. Maybe I get a little bit more of whatever I'm looking for by searching a little bit longer, putting myself through a bit more pain. I used to be an athlete and my  instinct, then and now, is to push through pain, to ignore it as long as humanely possible, but my experience over the past few years has taught me just the opposite. So I react clumsily when these options come up. I frantically weigh them in my mind, imagining both the exciting, idealized upside and the unthinkable downside.

So far, the fear of the downside has overriden my warrior instincts. I would rather, and it breaks my heart that this is my truth at my age, be safe than rich. I would rather be safe than successful. I would rather be safe than social. I would rather be safe. And so I choose safe, and I am grateful that it is a choice, but as I get better, I step into the path of temptation, of risk, of the unattainable dream that someday my illness will not matter. But it does matter. It may not matter to my friends or to my family, and someday, it may not matter as much to my mind or my body. But in my mind, I will always be bipolar, I will always be vulnerable, and I will always need to seek my security and safety if not over everything than else, than over the next thrill. I think it will always matter to me.