A Question of Sanity

It is the question of sanity plays around and round like vinyl on a turntable inside of my head every other hour every other day.   On the odd hour on the odd day, I look and walk the talk of a milk-toast human.   I slip my knickers on one leg at a time, hook my bra in the front and turn it around, pull it up and reposition.  I slip on my 'Not Your Daughter's Jean's, zip up and button without breathing in, except  once a month when I am suffering the curse, and then I lay flat on my back inhale deeply until my water-retraining tummy is sucked all the way back and is touching my spine.  It's not the end of the world on the odd hour-day.

When I am sane, I am sane through and through, all the way to the bottom of my toes up to the tip of my crown.  I am capable of saving worlds both small and large, stopping speeding bullets, jumping through fire, baking soufflés, and running three miles flat out without breaking a sweat.  I love the odd days.

On the even days, my shirt is miss-buttoned; my knickers are back-to-front my bosom is lopsided, and the zipper on my jeans is flying half-massed. My mind is a jumble so much so that it feels as if my thoughts are rolling around with the Bingo-balls inside a bingo cage colliding mid-turn but never connecting long enough to make sense.  It's that same feeling your body experiences after being swirled by the 'Wall of Death' – round and round you swirl, so fast it goes that the body is affixed without restraint to the 'Wall', so fast it goes the saliva remains stuck mid-dribble on the cheek.  The first step off the 'Wall' the body is disoriented, trips and comes close to falling only recovering at the last minute as both body and hands find refuge on the pole in the center of the 'Wall'.    This is the state of Love-madness.  I loathe the even-hour-days.

Before love madness, when I was sane all day long every day, I commanded small armies, navigated raging hormones, never sang the blues on a Monday, had a full accounting of each and every single thought, challenged and won every battle my dark-self threw my way.  I loved all of me every minute of every day because I knew that, even if I didn't know what was waiting for me around the next corner I had faith in my inner strength to see ne  through the challenge without my eyes rolling around the back of my head like a slot machine.  Since contracting love madness I worry if my next breath will catch in my throat, and I will die mid emotional-heart attack.

It's been eight years, two-hundred seventy-six days, eleven hours, twenty-two minutes, forty seconds since being infected.  There isn't a cure for this illness.  It's a life-long, no known drugs or chemo sort of treatment illness (although it's rumored Pinot, Chardonnay, and Ripple, can numb the mind long enough for semi-sanity to return for normal milk-toast events, so paying bills and washing dishes, can occur).

I am certain the last time I saw my head firmly affixed to my shoulders was eight years, two-hundred seventy-six days, eleven hours, twenty-two minutes and thirty-nine seconds ago , when your voice, more a calling than a choice, asked me for directions.   Since then, I've be swirling.