Here We Go Again

Let’s start with the good news.

My book officially has a webpage with University of Alberta Press! Isn’t the cover fabulous? Hopefully they’ll add a pre-order link sometime soon – something I need to ask them about. Please share with your friends and networks to get the word out!

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In bad news, it’s happened again.

I’m having a high and have to take extra medication to tamp it down.

This is my fault, as I was pitching a lot and doing a lot of things around the house and not thinking of the consequences.

Of course, it comes when I have several things due at once, plus edits coming in on my book manuscript. I’ll still meet my deadlines, but it will be harder to focus and take me longer than usual. These are the consequences of having a high and pitching everything. I struggle to do things as I’m nowhere near as capable as I thought I was when I pitched them.

The extra meds make me feel like I’m physically moving through molasses, while my mind is still racing, thinking of all the things I could and should do and how I can fit them all in. It’s an unpleasant feeling, of being a zombie with a buzzing brain. It’s impossible to balance the physical and mental ‘me.’

At least I’m still getting out hiking, which I think is important especially now. I did a small 4 km loop on Friday, and a longer 6 km loop on Sunday. Both times I had a hard time getting up in the morning (that molasses feeling again), but afterwards was glad that I’d gone. I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to keep going hiking, just because the longer I take the extra meds the more they reduce my ability to function. I find it difficult to walk, think, and carry on a conversation.

It will take weeks on this dosage to rein in my racing thoughts. In the meantime, I’m trying to slow down physically but am finding it difficult.

One of my slowing down techniques is noticing neat things on the trail. On Sunday I saw the shadow of a fern on a rock, which made the rock look like it had ripples in it. I saw a pile of pinecone debris in the middle of the trail, and assumed a squirrel had been busy eating there. I ran across another hornet’s nest, fully intact except for the centre, which didn’t have any paper honeycombs left inside it. Did a bear eat them all? And then there was the fallen tree, which had exploded as it hit the ground, leaving bark and moss debris and jagged sections of trunk beside the trail.

Another slowing down technique is to sit in the yard with our dog. She lies in the grass sniffing everything and anything on the air, while I sit in a patio chair down on the lawn, having a pop and hanging out with her. It’s especially nice to be outside with a breeze that I imagine smells like the ocean, in the shade to shelter from temperatures in the high 20⁰C/low 30⁰C, listening to the birds.

However, there’s the chance that I might mess up our trip to the Rockies in September. We’ve been looking forward to it for months, and finalized some of our travel plans on Sunday. But what if I fall into a low and can’t get out of it? Will we still go? Based on my previous episodes, the timing of this high means that I’ll finally get it under control in about a month or so. I’ll be able to taper back on the meds. And then I’ll have a low about a month after that, which is right on our travel dates. Of course, the trajectory could be different this time. There are so many permutations and combinations of things that work together to affect my mood. It’s unpredictable and can leave me in a precarious state.

I refuse to cancel my trip. Just like I refuse to let this high get the better of me. I guess I just have to ride it out. Whatever happens, I have to adapt, which I’m not good at. You’d think by now I’d be used to this, but every time I feel like I’m starting all over again.

In good news, I’ve been slowly putting together a proposal for a new book. It fits well with this Terry Tempest Williams quote from Refuge, “Perhaps I am telling this story in an attempt to heal myself, to confront what I do not know, to create a path for myself with the idea that “memory is the only way home.” I have been in retreat. This story is my return.”