Witt's End

What’s our first reaction when someone we love is hurting? Do we support them through the trial/pain or try to take it away? I’m the latter. And it isn’t always what’s needed.   The first reaction I have is solving the problem, giving someone a solution. I’m not the greatest at letting someone vent, I’m not the best at giving space. I smother. I know I do. Because I care.  I know how to listen. I know how to care. I know how to be there. But I often get selfishly wrapped up in myself, and try to be the saving grace. I try to solve it. And that’s probably my ego talking.  Lately personal experience has forced a new perspective.  We get sick. We have bad things happen. And nothing can change it.  Knowing that, sometimes we just need to talk our way through; or sit in silence.  I've needed that more and more since I've gotten sick.  But it's a new realization that sits against what I learned and did most of my life before this point.  Now sometimes I feel helpless to the point

Mania makes you nostalgic for what has never been.     The confidence of the familiar with the wonder of something new. It’s like when a toddler decides to talk in full sentences. Surprising, fast, careless, stumbling. But totally sure.  It’s often calm on the surface. Other than the speech. The only tell to what’s rippling, roiling, boiling underneath.  That’s why with a surety you talk at 100 mph, you feel you’re the smartest person in the room.  Your mind always awake. Like caffeine. Coursing constantly for days.  What’s sleep but an inconvenience to keep your body from collapsing. As you get less and less you feel dissociated but never sluggish. Life’s on autopilot. Nothing can bring you down. So pieces of your day start missing. But it doesn’t matter when you feel like this.  You gloss over the growing agitation. The itching, the crawling in your mind.  You take it all the stimulus at first. All of it. Wondrous, bright, colorful, loud. And you take it all in. A volume in your voic