By July 2007, it became clear because reasons that I had little control when it came to alcohol. Kate asked me to take a month off, and I agreed. However, I wasn’t particularly consistent with this.
One evening, I realized that I couldn’t be trusted, and that I was only cheating myself, and that I needed to walk away forever if I was going to change for the better. Eight years later, I’m feeling pretty good about this decision.
In August of 2014, Robin Williams committed suicide. I took it pretty hard. It’s not so much because I’m a big fan of his work; it’s because of what it said about me. I logged off of Facebook and Tumblr for a full week after this, because I didn’t want to see everybody’s assessment of the event. Regardless, I saw everybody’s assessment of the event.
As a bipolar, I have a rhythm—autumn puts me into hypomanic phases, winter and spring are pretty stable, and summer lulls me into a deep, deep depression. Therefore I was barely holding on anyway when this happened, crippling me with grief. Add this to the guilt of feeling so miserable, despite how wonderful my life is, with the cats and the spouse and the adventures and the time to write and draw as much as I want; and my own death was not far from my mind.
It’s said that suicide is the coward’s way out. I disagree with this fully. At those lowest of moments, all I could think of is the burden I put onto my spouse—we’d been married for five years before I’d gotten a proper mental-health diagnosis, and the damage done to her is incalculable. What she needed, I told myself, was to be free of me.
What this brought me back was my parents. For a long time, they’ve looked at me as the go-to guy for info on bipolar, attention-deficit disorder, and depression. I have them, I’ve learned about them, and in their mind, I’ve beaten them. My sister was not so lucky. She’d attempted suicide many times, and, and I’d been the one who was able to get through to her (this is because I’m anti-platitude).
It was me my parents turn to for comfort and reassurance. For years, I’ve been an expert in (mostly) keeping the depths of my depression to myself, especially from them. Can you imagine what it would do to them if I finally snapped? So I was able to talk myself out of it, no matter how hard it got.
In the end, I recovered, then hit my annual manic period, then cycled rapidly, and finally stabilized … for now. Summer’s starting, and I’m worried. Will it be as bad as before? Or will the thrill of returning to the States keep me afloat? I have no idea.
I haven’t been able to talk about this to anyone but my spouse and my psychiatrist (because reasons), but I really, really need to share with someone else. And my journal is locked … and now it’s out there. Keep your fingers crossed that I make it to late September in a somewhat chipper mood.
I moved to Indiana only a few short months after Newcastle was born, and a few weeks after my spouse invited him into her home. We quickly became best friends—even though he’s a cat. But we have so much in common. Like me, he is big, clumsy, and bipolar.
He’s not the only cat. Since 2000 he has had two brothers—Andrew and Magik—who have graciously allowed me to live in their home.
And so the five of us have grown older together, and unlike the people in the house, the cats have maintained perfect health, despite the fact that two of them are senior citizens. I should be bracing myself for their inevitable retirement, but I’m starting to believe they’re going to live forever.
We had moved into the Washington DC metro area the year before, and I had yet to settle in. I’d been unemployed for the most part (this is by choice, since we could afford it), and we’d not really found any friendships that had stuck. And so, while my spouse was working overseas and left me alone for a few months during the autumn and winter of 2009, I had a breakdown.
It was the cats who kept me grounded, particularly Newcastle, who follows me around like he’s my sidekick. I don’t know what I’ve done to earn his affection, but I’ll always be grateful. In fact, during my first session with a new psychiatrist, he asked me what my goal was, and I said I wanted to be as good a person my cat thinks I am. When he tells me to find my “happy place,” it’s Newcastle massaging my neck and purring, like he does every night before I fall asleep.
We’ve been living in Qatar for the past two and a half years. I won’t go into details here about how things have gone, suffice it so say that there have challenging at times, and once again, it’s been Newcastle, et al, to the rescue. We’re headed back to the States mid-June, and for some pretty logical-but-convoluted reasons, we’ve sent the cats back early—as in this past Thursday. Our schedule’s been nuts over the past few days, so I’ve barely noticed their absence. But when life returns to normal starting Wednesday, and I’m all alone in the empty house …
I’ve never been apart from them—and they me—for more than a few weeks in a row before, so six weeks is going to be particularly brutal. They’re with friends who love them and whom they love, so I’m not particularly worried about them. But man I miss these guys.
In the fall of 1994, I met someone*. We dated, but that didn’t work out in the long run. Life got in the way. Eventually, after some work and some time, we became friends again.
Six years later, we enjoyed a very long weekend together, but that didn’t work out in the long run. Life got in the way. Eventually, after some work and some time, we became friends again.
Four years after that, we enjoyed another long weekend together. Life, as it does, threatened to get in the way, but this time, we told it to go fuck itself. We became more than just friends, and we were going to keep it that way.
Less than a year later, on April 30, 2005, we said “I do.”
A full decade later, we have fought tooth and nail, through better and through worse, through sickness and through health, through thick and through thin. We have supported, excited, impressed, entertained, and loved. We’ve traveled so far, learned so much, and have come home to each other. We’ve been friends and lovers on-and-off for over twenty years, and husband and wife for ten.
It’s our anniversary, and a damned happy one.
_____
* Spoiler Alert! It’s my spouse.
As an aside, I had a buddy in college … he had a man crush on me, and I thought he was pretty awesome too. My two favorite memories are when we each bought a flask of Wild Turkey and drank ourselves sick, just because we were trying to impress one another; and how he found me wallowing after my girlfriend dumped me (he raced over as soon as the rumor got to him), and he took me on a long drive through town, playing my favorite artist on his tape deck (PJ Harvey), which was cute because he only had one song by her on his mix tape.
His only flaw was his girlfriends, who were all pretty not-with-it, and sometimes positively unhinged. Years after we graduated, a good friend dated him for a long time, and I thought, Finally, someone cool worth his attention.
And when she finally extracted herself from that relationship, she reported that this guy was physically and verbally abusive, and utterly, totally controlling. And it explained everything. Now, upon this revelation, there was no conflict in my mind about my loyalty. To me, he seemed like bromance material. To women, he was a piece of shit, and that made him a piece of shit to the core. I don’t care how much I liked him.
But what makes me cringe is this: Am I allowed to have good memories of him? How could I just not see the common thread with these women he dated? How could I miss this about him? How could I be so fucking stupid?
This is the first time I’ve shared this, so it’s a little rambly. But a similar feeling came to me about Bill Cosby’s rape allegations. The man was an idol and a major inspiration to me, storytelling-wise. How can he continue to occupy such a happy place in my memories. How am I allowed to chuckle to myself when I think of his material?
This has really rattled me.
I woke up today with the theme song to a telenovela I used to watch (well, sort of watch*), in my head, so I looked it up online when I had a minute and checked out its Wikipedia entry, just for nostalgia’s sake. The plot description was pretty much Mad-Libs with Latin names:
“When Fernanda and José Luis fall in love, Eugenio gets extremely jealous, but when he decides to eliminate his rival, he discovers that his own daughter Jaqueline, is in love with José Luis. Jaqueline, on the other hand is being wooed by Manuel, who despite his popularity, cannot call Jaqueline’s attention.”
Also:
“Lucia becomes beautiful and makes a vengeful decision to get back at Gerardo for dating her out of pity. In the end, Gerardo finds out that Lucia is Adriana and is infuriated with her. They eventually forgive each other and start dating again.”
Seriously, I LOVE telenovelas.
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* I didn’t, and still don’t, speak Spanish, but it doesn’t matter with a telenovela; it’s the most visually expressive of television genres, so they’re actually pretty easy to follow. They were actually a nice thing to have on in the background, because they didn’t interfere with whatever writing or artwork I was focused on, and if I needed to give my eyes a rest, there was almost always a pretty face—male or female—emoting on screen.
The New Jersey National Guard moved onto the military base over here, which was nice, because it meant I could use my native tongue whenever I rolled through the gate to get the Post Office.
GUARD: (taps on my car window) Pardon me, sir; can I see some ID?
ME: (rolls down the window) Yeah? What for?
GUARD: Oh, so the smart guy here thinks he speaks Jersey, huh?
ME: So what are ya gonna [Bad Word]ing do about it?
GUARD: I’m gonna [Bad Word]ing ask you for your [Bad Word]ing ID, that’s what I’m gonna do.
ME: (hands it over) I hope you choke on it, jerk-off.
GUARD: (scans card) So, trying to bring weapons or contraband on the base like some stupid [Bad Word]?
ME: What, are you [Bad Word]ing stupid or something? Do I look like the kind of [Bad Word] who would bring [Bad Word]ing weapons or contraband on base?
GUARD: (hands the card back and signals his partner) You look like a [Bad Word]. Now get the [Bad Word] out of my face!
ME: Up yours, [Bad Word]!
(The gate opens, and I drive away)
GUARD: (shouts after me) [Bad Word] you, buddy!
ME: Same to you, pal!
I was faced with something I wasn’t 100 percent sure about on a buffet recently, but then I thought about it, and I remembered something from about 1983.
When getting a soda order from a restaurant, I decided that, rather than the Orange Crush I’d been drinking since as long as I could remember (which must have been, what, three years at that point? Still, to be fair, it was almost half of my life. Anyway …) I ordered something mysterious and exotic: Dr. Pepper. For quite some time, that became my favorite drink (not anymore). I have similar stories involving Indian, Ethiopian, and sushi.
I guess what I’m saying is, I took the item from the buffet, because who knows? It could be my favorite food, and I don’t even know it.
I kind of thought Rita looked like an elf. She had that slim build, sharp features, and short, dark hair. She could have been a Vulcan, but Vulcans didn’t smile that much.
On September 11, 2001, I’d spent that particular day assuring everybody I was fine and calming down those who didn’t see it like I did. I told myself that their fear was more justified than mine because they didn’t see what I saw, and on that day I drank as soon as I could. Two days later, when I finally made it home, I found my stash of marijuana and lit it up. The rest of the time I consoled my girlfriend Andrea, whose birthday was September 13.
And so, two weeks later, when Katherine O’Shea threw a party for herself and everyone who missed out on their own birthday, I sought out the most cheerful people I could find. That person was Rita and her companion Anne Marie, out on the smoking deck.
I was on fucking fire. Were I not attached, I may have made a move on either of them. And, frankly, I feel lucky that it was them, because they took it in stride. My flirtation didn’t come across as creepy so much as it did all in good fun. Fun is the operative word here, because that’s what drew me to her, time and time again. And it didn’t hurt that she was cute.
Shane took it upon himself to familiarize me with two important aspects of the city—the first being the subway system.
“Don’t worry,” he said as I squinted at something on the wall of a subway car that appeared to be a Jackson Pollack painting superimposed over a map of Manhattan. “You’ll get it if you just take your time with it. Just take the trains you need, and you’ll learn the hubs and connections.” His finger traced a strip of blue and stopped at a dot that said 135 BC.
“A hundred and thirty-five years before the birth of Jesus?” I asked myself, but not aloud. As a resident for forty hours, I figured it was time to act like I knew what I was doing.
“That’s where my dealer is,” he explained.
I nodded like someone who actually understood. We exited the train and headed up the street. “He gets a little freaked out when he sees new people, so just wait by the entrance and look inconspicuous.”
Harlem, New York, hosted Louis Farrakhan’s One Million Youth civil rights march that afternoon. Shane, whose blond hair, blue eyes, and the complexion of someone who saw the sun rarely—which fed into the speculation that we were siblings—dove into the crowd and left me alone on the sidewalk, humming, sweating, and avoiding eye contact. He returned after what could have been hours and hustled me downstairs.
Jeremiah Murphy 