I hope to somehow go down the road. I am a person with some issues, some strength, and would like to talk about how I feel about my life. I've been stuck for a while now, treading water in my life. I have a stable living environment, food security, and a family. There also are friends, but I mostly don't talk to them. Or my family. Or anybody, so I thought I'd try talking to myself, on a blog. Not planning on telling anyone I actually know that I'm doing this. Not really sure that I want my real life to intersect with the life inside my head.

A few years ago, I was diagnosed bipolar, with a borderline personality disorder. Put on medicine that mostly didn't really help. I've not been really good at keeping up with my health care, mostly thinking that I know more about it than any doctor could. I think the diagnosis was sketchy, mostly a result of a random event rather than any kind of analysis. There was also a doctor that suggested that I might have Asperger's Syndrome, and I ran directly away from him too. I had a real job that I loved. I felt pretty good about everything. I felt like a real person. Then it all went to hell.

The store I worked in was run by somebody not doing a good job. The hours allotted to the employees were based on the overall sales of the store. I wasn't anybody, really, and my hours got cut. Another store opened in the plaza, my son got a job there, and they offered me more hours, so I jumped. And it just didn't work, the job was a bad fit, they said though nobody could tell me what exactly I had done wrong. And they fired me.  And then I couldn't sleep. And I had lost my driver's license. and all my teeth. and I was stuck at home and somebody brought home a bottle of bourbon.

It was a revelation. I had never been much of a drinker before, but bourbon dulled exactly what needed to be dulled, and I could sleep. I stayed up late playing video games and sipping at some bourbon.  And the time passed. and the road stopped.

I made a hand pieced quilt top for my husband for Christmas. I visited my parents on Christmas eve, and suddenly, suddenly, my life was no longer my own. Something was wrong with my father and I didn't know what. He was 88 years old, the sole caretaker of my 91-year-old mother who had some early stage mental changes, maybe Alzheimer's, maybe just dementia. And without his attention, his memory, his care, both of them had fallen into some really bad habits. They weren't eating or taking medicine or bathing and doing laundry, the house was getting hoarded out and falling into disrepair. I tried reminding them on the phone, I tried enlisting the neighbors, but it became clear that what they needed was me. So I came back, and I stayed. and I'm still here though now they both are gone. Maybe this is all I can tell today. Maybe I will try again tomorrow. This has brought all the horror, all the enormous responsibility and fear back. And now, I need some more bourbon.