It's Getting Slightly Better All the Time...

As I begin to stabilize and the world's vibrancy grows more and more dull, I find myself, in the stronger moments, telling myself to breathe, to remember I've been through this all before, and most of all, to embrace the subdued. In time and with eyes straight forward, the tendency to view life in a shadowy peripheral will diminish.

Boring, routine, and sure, I miss walking into a dark room and with a flip of a switch, POP POP POP, turning on the Fourth of July...but a slightly less dark room is nice too. Unexciting, lifeless, explaining to the Higher-Ups at work the medications I'm on should not make it easier for me to smile at the customers. They are not those kinds of drugs. For instance, thanks to my lovely anti-psychotics, halfway through the night my muscles spasmed. My words recommend the Cod but the confused and horrified expression now frozen on my face told a completely different story.

Empty, usual, each day, I take my meds in Heather-Mary's room. My accounta-billa-buddy. The bathroom has a toilet and trashcans, no one would know. These are dangerous times.

"These confused feelings are normal," says my Doctor. Doctor Goode. Six months ago, the irony horrified me. What doctor could ever live up to that name? Now it gives me comfort, he is what he is - the Good Doctor. I showed him the photos I took yesterday, and we went through each one.
"What is this couple laughing at?"
"Not me?"
"No, not you."
"They're just enjoying the nice day?"
"That's right. Was it a nice day?" And as I looked through the rest of the pics and at Doctor Goode and at the clouds outside the open window that were definitely not spelling out the word jump, I said out loud, "Yes, it was a nice day." And Doctor Goode said, "Good."

And for at least this moment, I will escape that world under the neath, and life will be in the literal where it belongs...in all its glorious blacks and whites.