Just another manic weekend

[Zooie]

This is an article featured in the PsychCentral newsletter. It is hilarious! (ya gotta laugh)


Just Another Manic Weekend
By Christine Stapleton

I still get manic but it’s a kinder, gentler mania.

“Whaddya have goin’ this weekend?” a friend asked during a phone call last Friday.

“Linda is turning 50 so I’m going to her party on Saturday night. Other than that, nothing,” I told him. “I’m sure I will find something.”

Oh, yeah. Somehow – despite the mood stabilizer I take (religiously) – Mr. Mania snuck into my bed and we woke up together on Saturday morning with a spectacular To-Do List.


First, I dropped of my daughter’s car at the dealership for a tune up. Then I drove her to work. Then I decided to start cleaning out the shed. Then I got a haircut. Then I went back home and cleaned out the shed some more. Then I organized all the little jars and boxes of nails and screws and tapcons and lined them up on one shelf, right beside the zip ties, which are right beside the cans of WD-40 and other lubricants, which are right beside all the cans of spray paint…perfect… The gardening stuff is on the bottom shelf, except the chain saw and hedge clippers, which are mounted on the wall… Move the hurricane panels (which weigh a freakin’ ton) to the other side of the shed… There still isn’t enough room for the surf boards…Man, I have to get rid of these old paint cans… load them in the trunk of the car and drop them at the household hazardous waste dump on the way back to the dealership…pick up her car and drop off my car, which needs some kind of belt to stop the engine from chirping like a nest of hungry parrots…stop at Home Depot for some new weed whapper line…I should rewire that old lamp I found in the shed…and that old hose just needs the ends replaced…wow, that’s a nice looking plant. Get it for the front yard…all that junk on the bedroom floor would fit into one of those under the bed storage boxes…back home for some weed whapping…man, that hedge looks awful, I should trim that…(see above photo for “trimming” aftermath)…OMG, Linda’s party!…Shower, party, dancing till my legs are on fire…back home… can’t sleep…sort through the crap to go in the box to go under the bed…1 am…not tired…must…go…to…sleep…

That was Saturday. Sunday was just as bad. Now it’s Monday morning, raining and my right elbow hurts like a mother (I shouldn’t have sawed off all those branches). It is raining and I have to get to work. My mania is waning but it will get me through today. But I know by mid-week it will be gone. I fear the wet blanket of fatigue and weariness that will likely smother me.

And so it goes. Up – a little bit – and down – a little bit. I used to be much, much worse (like Martha Steward on crack followed by a koala bear on Xanax). What will today bring? I do not know. But I need to go take my meds…now.