Welcome... to My World.

As I sit here and look out my window at the weather, my thoughts drift from place to place. Nothing unusual about that for this bipolar man except... today I am able to reach out and touch a few of the thoughts. Very unusual for this man. Normally my thoughts race so fast that I can not catch, let alone, feel one of them. I like the moments, fleeting as they may be that I can do this.
Perhaps it is the weather itself that is allowing me to spend a moment with a thought or two. I see the ones that said I might want to make other blogs. Separate my thoughts on being bipolar from my short stories. A good thought that I am thinking on doing. Have a site for my "issues" and one for my short stories, so they do not all run together. I thank her in my mind and here for the idea. I think about the year we have had and how very different our seasons were this round. We had a wet spring that slid into summer without being noticed. The "summer" really wasn't much of a summer at all.
Now, as I sit here watching the rain quietly turning to snow, I wonder too where our Autumn went to. My favorite season seemed to wash past us in a fury of storms and rain that will be remembered for a long time to come. Devastating and yet because of the terrible storm we endured, the town is getting a face-lift. New rooves and new windows. Bright, clean new siding going on houses. As I watch this I think "Wow, this is the storm that is still here. It will be here, fresh in our minds until the final touches of new are completed. And still, we will remember why it looks so good every time we pass a new roof or new siding.
As I write, I feel my thoughts begin to race again. The wonderful feeling of holding a single thought begins to fade a bit. Soon, I will be back to abstract thought an chasing the thoughts until I am weary. And still one more thought comes to me. It settles and allows me to spend a moment thinking. That thought??? I watch each year as the season change a little more each year. More storms, more weather... less summer and short Autumns. I wonder if this is how it will stay. Will the seasons now take on a new look, a new length of staying?
And the thought that tangled with it. This is like me. Over the seasons, I too have evolved in different ways. I have settled a bit on that My Shiela is happy in heaven and that she doesn't have thoughts of sadness or of jealousy. She is now walking a new walk. One that will take her to the next step until we are all finished here on earth. I see and feel little changes in me like what I want from life and reaching out to make it mine. My springtime beautiful in that I have found new flowers and a place to make new memories. My summer, life fast pace and heated at times seems to have been melded into the Autumn of my life. The time to reap what I have sown, good and bad. seeds I planted in my children now blossoming, again of good and of sad.
I hold on as tightly as I can to Autumn, knowing that winter has already begun again. Snow outside whispering to me that Jack Frost has taken in a breath and is ready to exhale. I don't want to let go and allow winter to come. I like who I am in spite of the abstract thoughts and times when I truly am not sure why I stay.
I wonder too, as I do about the changing seasons, if this is how it will be now for me. Will some seasons, some friends stay for just a little while? Will my life all meld into one of such rushed moments, that I will miss the differences in the seasons? I want to experience each season, gently and slowly. I want to feel spring and see new life. I want to feel the heat of summer on my face and in my heart. I want to smell the fire-places as they start to burn in the fall. See the leaves change color slowly, not simply fall off the trees because winter came too soon.
Life is good and I am happy, mostly. I hold on to the mostly and look towards tomorrow. I wait to see if Jack Frost exhales or if he just gently blows his winter down on us. This.. is the mind of a bipolar. The mind that is gifted in being able to see life and everything it is in so many different ways. To imagine and feel everything and every place this mind takes me. Bad??? I don't think so. Hard to live with? Sometimes. Living life and making it all an analogy to reality and fiction. To always compare things that are real to something beautiful or ugly. Perhaps, just maybe, I have found a way to look at life and never see the ugly. To take every experience, every season, and make it a blessing. To be thankful for being able to be loved and love more than any one man deserved. To see the world through different eyes than the rest of the world. Not such a bad thing. Only when the abstract takes over and the Low times explode.
Do you have to be of like mind to understand what I have written here today? Hmmmmm??? I wonder how the rest of the world reads this.

The Writer Gazette... Resources at your fingertips.

You are a writer. You have finally finished that novel you had put away and taken out 20 times over the past X years. Now, the really difficult part about writing.Where are you going to send this creation? How do you know if it is "publisher" ready? What about a Query letter? What is a publisher looking for from you? And the big question you keep asking yourself. "How do I make my novel scream out "PICK ME!!??"
If you are like me, I think of seeking those answers much like I do shopping. Time is precious and so I like a store that offers everything I want under the same roof. Aisle after aisle of everything I need to start and finish a project. Less time driving from place to place, more time to do what I love to do. I feel the same about seeking out the right publisher for what I write.
Writer Gazette. When I am looking for some answers, be it publishers, writer markets, "how to" or "where to" books and e-books to get me from A to Z in the most direct, efficient path, Writer Gazette is where I go. Krista has built a writer help site that offers anything you need to find what you are looking for. She opens the doors to avenues that can take you through the process of preparation to submission as painlessly as possible. From her own books to those of writers, editors, publishers and agents, she guides you through the "maze" of becoming published. Writer Gazette enables you to find what you need so that you can get back to doing what it is you Really love to do. Write.
Have a look for yourself. I think you will like what you find. Writer Gazette... your one stop publishing site. {{Best Site in Writer's Digest magazine for: 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 & 2009. #3 of The Writer magazine's "25 Best Writer Websites"}} Tell her Darrel sent you.
Darrel Day. Author of Abduction and Until Death Do We Meet. www.thingsiknowabout.blogspot.com

You pay the Taxes!

Today, I want to talk about something that effects a lot of people. It is the reason for political talks, party conversation, and giving the government something to tax. It is the topic of votes for congress and the cause of more fights and arguments amongst friends than one could imagine. I am of course talking about cigarettes. Worldwide, between 80,000 and 100,000 kids start smoking every day. I have watched the price of cigarettes increase sometimes over night now for better than a year. Each time, someone says "It's enough! I am Quitting!" And each day, I see the same person buying another pack of cig's. My point truly isn't about that. It is about "Uncle Sam" and the cigarette companies ripping themselves off.
Taxes that are placed on cigs by our Government, causing the price to go higher and higher makes me wonder if they know what they are doing. If the price truly does continue to rise, it may force some smokers to quit. The way I see it, IF they do force people to quit, then where is the money they getting from Cigarette taxes going to come from? The revenue that is accrued by taxes from we smokers has got to come from somewhere. Non smokers are extremely quick to kick us out of restaurants and bars and stores and anywhere else they think we should not be aloud. The truth is that without us smokers, YOU will be paying the bill.
The government is already looking to start taxing things like potato chips and soda and anywhere else they can. You will be footing the bill to make up for what smokers taxes used to pay. The government complains and comes against those that smoke and the doctors and insurance companies make it a huge issue what damage smokers do to the environment and those around us. Somewhere along the road,they seem to forget that is smokers that are willing to pay the ridiculously high prices set by our government and supply a revenue of billions of dollars every year to finance their high paying jobs.
Say what you want about a smoker. complain, fight us, tell us how sick you are of breathing our smoke. Just remember this, please. When the price of pop or potato chips and ice cream goes up, because no one could afford to buy cigarettes anymore, I wont notice it because I have been paying for cig's that way for a long time. One last example of the not so smart way that Cigarette companies are cutting their own throats. A month ago, I was paying 15 USD's for a can of rolling tobacco. I alone bought two cans a week, plus the filters and machine. They decided to DOUBLE the price over night. The same cans I would have bought are still sitting there with a price tag of 35 USD's on them. Please, please tell me where the sense of that was! They are making Zero dollars on that can now. It was cheaper and less work for me to buy a carton of already put together cigs, than to make them myself. Hmmmmmm???? I am still thinking on that one.

Lost... another place to be in a Bipolar World.

Lost. The definition of this word is vast. It can mean anything from losing your wages at a poker game to not having a single clue as to where you are. The one I want to focus on is this one. { : unable to find the way b : no longer visible c : lacking assurance or self-confidence : helpless} This definition personifies the very being of a bipolar person. Some people have commented to me, saying "How can you speak so freely of All bipolar? Not everyone is You." They are very right and not every bipolar person has the same actions or reactions. But when you Generalize the disorder, similarities are found and most share the same issues and fears. Having said that, I am going to return to the thoughts of being Lost.
"Unable to find your way." That is one that dances through my brain so much these days. "No longer visible." That one I sometimes dream of. To be invisible would be to not have to hide or be embarrassed about the actions that come with being Bipolar. It would mean not having to explain my ways or to know in my heart that there are people I love dearly that simply choose to ignore this disorder or imagine that I can just "let it go." I don't think that these people can truly understand the depth of what being "lost" inside your mind truly means. To walk around, knowing you Want to do something, knowing there are things you Should be doing and yet not having the ability to find a way to do them. Physically, Yes... mentally, no. To feel as if you didn't belong in this time or in the place you are is a frightening feeling.
The "alone in a crowd" feeling comes in to play all too often in those scenarios.
Today, I am lost. I talk about this because sometimes there are still those that feel "alone" and think that their actions, their fears and movements are strange and that no one else in the world does them. I write because I want people to know that they are NOT alone and that the feelings they have inside are not crosses they have to bear alone. Lost has so many meanings but for me, someone that Bipolar is a part of my Everyday life, sometimes every single minute. It means waking up and it being a huge issue whether to sit or stand. Standing in the middle of the kitchen, staring out the window and thinking about all I could do and wondering what I WILL do.
LOST... standing in my own living room, wondering sometimes what keeps me inside so much. I Love the outdoors and yet... there is safety indoors. Not safety from "danger." I live in a tiny town that shoplifting is a "get in the paper" thing. lol. Safety from confrontations. A safe place, where I do not have to explain anything about me. No one to tell me I can fix this. No one to shake their head or whisper when they Think I am out of ear-shot. No body to feel as if I need to say "I am sorry" to because I twitch or shake. The only place I don't feel lost is right here. Writing is a place I can go and just Be. And I am thankful for that feeling.
If you feel "Lost" please, don't feel alone along with it. You are Not Ever truly Alone. There is a whole world of people that feel exactly like you do. I write this so that you know... Today, I am lost. Tomorrow, maybe it will be better. Always, Darrel

Welcome to My World...

Because it is Tuesday. Because it is cold and quiet. Because it just is. Reasons why I am in a low. I fear sometimes that my readers may look at this and say "Whoa, no thanks." And yet, I write. I write about my day and about where this disorder sometimes takes me. I write about the things that come to my mind sometimes so damn fast that I can not capture one single thought without ripping the other thoughts to threads. I fear what is and am afraid of things that don't even probably exist outside of this Bipolar mind.
I hear family and friends saying "get over it", "Move on", stop being so dramatic." Their words not only echo in my brain... they cut me and make me feel as if I am less than they want me to be or more than they want to believe. Challenges like getting out of bed are softer than the tasks of getting Into bed. Fearing what I might wake up as or where my mind will be when I wake. Knowing that in my sleep, I have NO control over my thoughts nor how they might set the standard for where I am going the following morning. How do you tell someone you love that it isn't them... it isn't laying beside them that is an issue. It is ending the day that you have some control over and not knowing what the next day will bring.
Life is good and yet, I fear that I have not truly accomplished anything. Not fully. Always half done. A CD that is GOOD and yet 100'2 sit in my closet, unopened, unheard. 1/2 done because they are only fully done if they are successful. Two Novels that sales have gone down on. Neither seeing #1 best sellers lists and yet... they are good. 1/2 done. Not finished because finished would be huge sales. So many half things in my life and yet, I try so hard to make them the best that I Am.
Welcome to my world. A world of successes that aren't. A world of seeing things always out of proportion and abstract. A world that keeps me going and yet stops me at every corner. Welcome to my Bipolar Day. Today, I deal with it my way... Tomorrow???? Who knows?
The world of a bipolar runs in such intense motions. Whether it is up or down, the intensity is always the same. The roller coater ride is never ending and you just have to hold on tight and hope there is still a Track around the next bend. This, is my world...