3:48am… Do You Know Where Your Blogger Is??

Getting up at 3:48 in the morning sounded like a great idea last night. The idea was that I’d get up early and get my paper work done. It sounded like a great idea….and it was. I started my day completing all of my paper work that was in my backpack. By the time I actually got to work I was caught up. Novel concept. That meant that I was actually ready for each class. That meant by the time my second/biggest class arrived  I wasn’t overwhelmed by all the paper that had piled up from the first class. That also meant that I wasn’t as frazzled as I normally get with this class. I felt a bit more balanced and in control of the situation.

Our campus has an English Only policy because we are trying to get them to a point where they are employable in America with a decent wage. Reminding them to speak English is one of the least enjoyable aspects of my day because I hate being ignored. Instead of getting mad (this happens when I’m feeling swamped) I was able to be more engaged in what they were doing and trouble shooting the normal problems that crop up.

All in all, my day was good. I even had energy left at the end of the day to clean the classroom and get ready for tomorrow and Monday. And when I drove home from work, my usual road “angst” didn’t set in. That I even have road angst (a few steps removed from road rage) is sad. You can take the girl out of California… but you can’t get her foot off the gas pedal. I hate being behind slow drivers. It drives me crazy. Even for 8 minutes. Shows how tightly wound up I can be sometimes. Uh….I live on an island. My commute is only 8 minutes if I drive the speed limit. I take a back road lined with sugar cane fields. What’s the rush? Why the angst? I should be driving below the speed limit just so that I can stop and smell the plumeria. And that’s what I did today. I slowed down and looked at the scenery just because I could. Just because I wasn’t all exhausted from work. That whole 3:48 thing was a good idea.

Actually, when I walked into my house I thought the 3:48 thing was a great idea! My house was clean. It’s usually pretty clean, but today it was extra-clean. I’d forgotten that I cleaned this morning before I left. Nice. I’m going to try that 3:30 wake up call again tomorrow to see if it was a fluke. I sincerely hope not. Of course, since I do like my sleep…  I’m not planning on making a daily habit out of it… but a few days a week might be a good idea.

“I-G-N” is for “Anal Retentive”

I have to be one of the most anal retentive people I know.

Unfortunately, I can’t blame it on my Bipolar Disorder or on my Asperger’s Syndrome. It’s just part of my natural personality. Some people are wired to be carefree and spontaneous. Me? I’m wired for sound. I’m uptight. I have been tightly wound for as long as I can remember — LONG before my Bipolar began to manifest. It is a part of my “individual style.” Evidently, God wired me up that way. It dawns on me daily that God has a weird sense of humour.

It has also dawned on me that it’s taking me a really long time to review my notes from the DESIGN workshop. I only started this particular series because my pastor said that we should consider our God-given design before getting married and I did that. But now I’m done and I want to wrap it up… so I’m going to combine the last three topics in the acrostic and be done with it for now. What are the last three points?

“I” is for “Individual Style.” Most people think that being anal retentive is a bad thing… but I’m learning to embrace my inner anal retention. Ew. That sounds kinda gross. Let me rephrase and explain: I want to embrace my total personality no matter what it looks like. We did a brief assessment that focused on questions related to how we are organized and how are we energized. Simple questions with a sliding scale between two opposing choices. For example:

(How are You Organized?) – circle the number that best applies to you

• I prefer projects that have………… variety << 1    2   3   4 >> routine
• I prefer to set guidelines that are… general << 1   2   3   4>>  specific
• I find routine…………………………….boring << 1   2   3   4 >> restful

(How are You Energized?)

• I’m more comfortable… ……………..doing things for people <<1   2  3  4>> being with people
• I place a higher value on…………….. action<< 1  2  3  4>> communication
• I get more excited about…………….. advancing a cause << 1  2  3  4>> creating community

My resulting score was used to chart my “Personal Style Intensity.” And I’m just anal retentive enough to find something like this TOTALLY fascinating.  I looked back over my notes and recalculated my answers to see if I’d changed any since my surgery…. but I guess it’s like that saying: Ugly goes to the bone. Evidently, so does personality style. Even though my life circumstances have changed drastically and I feel like a different person, my personality style hasn’t changed one bit. There were four basic personality style groupings: People who were “task/routine,” “people/routine,” “people/spontaneous,” and “task/spontaneous.” Guess which ones I’m not??? To date, I have never blogged about anything that would make anybody, anywhere think that I have a spontaneous bone in my body. So that rules out two of the types. Given my love of the Bipolar Bubble… one might think anything with “people” in the title would be ruled out too. But you’d be wrong. I might not relate well to people… but I desperately want to. So what’s my personality style?

“People/Routine” is defined thusly: If you are people/routine, you like defined relations, feeling secure in familiar surroundings, project warmth and enjoy familiar relationships. If this is your Personal Style, consider the kind of ministry position that will enable you to interact with people in more stable or defined settings.

If this isn’t me, I don’t know what is. One reason my last relationship didn’t work was because he was extreme  Task/Spontaneous. He was a maverick that liked to do things off the cuff and it stressed me out. Were I to marry a guy who was ultra-spontaneous that would create a lot of emotional stress and mental unrest for me. I need a certain amount of routine in my life in order to be stable. I also need to be around familiar people and settings or I get punchy. My ex wanted me to move to Australia where he was from. He could not understand how badly the notion of permanently leaving my country rocked my equilibrium. Familiar surroundings are essential for a happy Bipolar Girl. That’s why teaching is a good job for me… but why teaching children was the wrong environment. Children are unpredictable and that makes for a chaotic environment. My current job totally works with my personality style. I’m game for trying to step out of my comfort zone, but not in radical degrees. The bottom line is mental wellness and I don’t think that’s selfish. If I want a happy marriage it’s wise to know this about myself.

That section of the workshop also dealt with personality type... like whether you’re a beaver, an otter, a Golden Retriever, or a lion. You can find those kinds of personality assessments online. And again, Anal Retentive Girl LOVES stuff like that. Myers-Briggs, Florence Littauer, you name the personality test… and I’m gonna take it. I ended up being a beaver:

Organized. Beavers think that there is a right way to do everything and they want to do it exactly that way. Beaver personalities are very creative. They desire to solve everything. Desire to take their time and do it right. Beavers do not like sudden changes. They need reassurance.

There was more… strengths, weaknesses, and limitations… but I want to cover all three points. If I go into all the minutia this post is going to be epic in length. Bottom line, my future spouse and I will have distinct personalities and we need to respect the other for who they are and not who we want them to be. I kept trying to remake my ex in my image and that was wrong. If  I meet somebody on eHarmony, if I can’t appreciate him for who he actually is, then I have no business dating him.

“G” is for “Growth Stage.”

I like this one because it was short and to the point: Are you a seeker, new believer, stable and growing in your faith, or leading and guiding others?? My ex was a new believer. I’d been a Christian for years, albeit a very immature one. I kept trying to cram my faith down his throat so I could fatten him up for marriage. If God wasn’t going to bring me a mature Christian mate then I assumed that I had to make my own. I wasn’t a new believer… but I could hardly be considered stable and growing. They need to put another level on that assessment: Saved, but stupid. It took getting burned really badly in that last relationship for me to take a serious look at what was wrong with my spiritual life. I was trying to take a guy and cram him into the God-sized void in my life. Dumb idea. That  never works. The only one who can fill that God-sized void is God.

Now? I’m older and wiser. Sure, I want to get married… but I’m not assuming that my spouse will be able to complete me the way that only God can. I am stable in my spiritual walk and that has led to mental and emotional stability. I’m growing in my faith even though that growth is slow. The main point is that I’m growing and it’s steady. That means I don’t even consider marrying a non-believer or a new believer or somebody who is not going to be able to be the spiritual leader of our family. Now does this mean I have to marry some old geezer? I sincerely hope not. I am praying that my spouse will  be stable in his faith and growing so that we can continue to grow together. But I’m also praying that he’ll be easy on the eyes.

“N” is for “Natural Gifts.”

Everybody has God-given natural gifts whether they attribute them to God or not.  I used to think that because I couldn’t paint or sculpt or do ballet or fix/build things that I didn’t have any talents. I desperately want to do those kinds of things. I’ve got a big case of envy towards people who can do those things.  Plus, it seems that the things that I actually can do, I’m only mediocre. I can sing and I pretend to play the piano and the guitar… but I have very limited talent. Nothing that I paint will ever be on display in a museum and my singing will never get me on “American Idol.”

It was only once I stopped insisting on perfection that I was able to see talents that existed in embryo form. I also started broadening my view of what a talent/natural ability actually is. So what that I’m not a performance artist. I’m a writer and a fairly good one. I dabbles in poetry. I’m an extremely talented public speaker. I paint ceramic pigs. I make a mean rack of pork. I’m incredibly humble.  It’s important to believe that you have talent and it’s important to use your natural abilities. My anal retention often blocks me from recognizing my talents or working in them because I demand perfection and get mad when I can’t achieve it. Even as I type, my guitar is gathering dust in the corner. I need to re-evaluate my natural abilities and start using them. Some of them definitely fall into the “use it or lose it” category and I don’t want that. Over the next year I want to invest time honing my natural abilities.

I want a spouse who has natural talents, it’s only fair that I have some too. Otherwise I’d be really one dimensional. I don’t my spouse and I to live in each other’s back pocket. Will I want to try out some of his talents and natural abilities? I will if it doesn’t include rock climbing and other extreme sports. My natural abilities lie in the realm of the cerebral or that which you can do indoors. I’d love to meet a guy who could get me out on a hike or out in a kayak. Of course, he’ll have to teach me how to swim first… but for the right guy anything is possible.

Now, as I end this series I would like to point out that I wasn’t considering my God-given DESIGN for the sole purposes of finding a spouse. I think it’s good to know who you are and how God made you so that you can lead a fuller, more colorful life. I am not living my life to the fullest right now,  but I intend to. As I recover from my surgery I want to start moving out into new talents and interests. I want to start building new memories and working in more of my spiritual gifts. My future is wide open and the walls of the Bipolar Bubble have never been so low. I’m not trapped anymore. I can move forward. I will move forward. And if that forward movement involves a mate then that would be FABULOUS… but even if I never meet anybody, I’ll be a better person for striving to live out my life according to the way that God designed me. And the one thing that is really comforting to me as I ponder my future… is that God is bigger than my anal retention. He’s going to use me as long as I keep showing up and I’m willing.

“S” is for “Members Only”

I always say that you don’t have to be a Christian to read my blog…

…but this particular post is probably going to be lost on anybody who isn’t a Christian. That being said, I hope my non-Christian audience sticks around. I’ve been thinking about my DESIGN quite a bit since my pastor brought it up. All debate aside about how we got here or what the meaning of our lives is supposed to be, I believe that God designed me with a specific purpose in mind. Not knowing my purpose is like me not knowing what to do with that part in my car that got disconnected a few weeks back. I still don’t know where it goes or how to put it back. The idiot light is still a steady amber color and I’m just praying that my car keeps running until I can take it in to the shop.

DESIGN, and understanding said design, is important. If I knew what that piece was I could fix it. Or at least put enough duct tape on it to keep it in place. Without an understanding of the original design I’m stressed out and worried. My car is not running optimally. So it makes sense, at least to me, that I do whatever I can to understand how God designed me. I’m custom made and I didn’t come cheap. I’ve already looked at my desires. I’m still trying to suss those out. I’ve looked at my experiences and am now happily  storing up good memories from good experiences rather than trying to tiptoe through the minefield of a bad past. Desires and experiences?? Both of those could apply to anybody. We’ve all got desires. We’ve all had positive and negative experiences. You don’t have to be a Christian or have Bipolar Disorder for either of those two to apply.

“S” is different. It stands for “spiritual gifts” and without the Holy Spirit of God living inside you, you don’t get any. They are talents and abilities that God gives to his people to enable them to fulfill whatever purpose he has created them to do. Think of them like super powers without some of the cool points. People have differing opinions as to what constitutes a spiritual gift or how many gifts there actually are, but they range from warm and fuzzy stuff like the gifts of mercy, helps, and giving to hardcore stuff like the gifts of prophecy, celibacy, speaking in tongues, and martyrdom. There’s a bunch more that fit right in the middle of the spectrum that I’m not going to list… but if you ask me, I’ve always had a hard time seeing celibacy or martyrdom as gifts. If I had to stay celibate for life I’d want somebody to kill me.

Like all gifts, spiritual gifts need to be used in order to be appreciated. To avoid working in your gift would be like getting a gift at Christmas and then putting it on the top shelf of your closet for a few years. If it was a bottle of wine, that might be ok. But if it was that lone slab of fruitcake that gets passed around from person to person the world over, you’ve got a problem. Moldy fruit cake seems about as appealing to me as does celibacy. Now every believer is said to have at least one gift. Some have several in varying degrees of proficiency. I think you can grow and develop in your gift as well as use it or lose it. At different points in my life I’ve worked in different spiritual gifts.

Why is this important in a marriage you might ask? Suppose Susy Q Christian has the gift of celibacy, but is pressured by family and the culture to marry. No matter who she marries… life is going to be challenging if she never wants to have sex. Of course, that’s pretty extreme and probably not likely to ever happen. But what if she has a call to be a missionary. A fine and noble gift which she will have to surrender if she goes ahead an marries her non-Christian fiancee or if her husband turns out to be a Christian, but has no such gifting from God. She will give up her calling for God because women have been known to give up everything for a ring on the finger. I know I almost abandoned my calling because of a man. Now I know that it’s important for me to understand how God wired me up, so that I don’t let anything or anyone cause me to take my eye off of the race that Jesus has called me to run.

So what are my spiritual gifts? If you google “spiritual gifts” you will find a wealth of online assessments that will help you hone in what your gifts are. Another important piece of information: Spiritual gifts are not to be confused with natural talents. Everybody on the planet has natural talents. You have to have the Spirit in order to get his gifts. My gifts have been fairly consistent over the years, though there have been times when a gift has been dormant for a season because of drama going on in my life or spiritual grow that was happening. I took three different assessments in the past few days and they confirm that my primary gifts are teaching, exhortation, and wisdom. I scored the exact same thing on all three of those. My secondary gifts are discernment, knowledge, and faith. Again, I scored the exact same thing which is why I listed all three. For a while prophecy used to rank really high on these kinds of assessments, but who’s really going to  listen to a person with a mental illness saying that they’ve had “a message from God” ?? I think this gift is dormant in me right now and quite frankly, I’m glad. It always proved to be very stressful for me.

And praise God I did not get the gift of celibacy or martyrdom. I also didn’t rank very high up there in the mercy category or any of the other really warm and fuzzy ones. I also think my gift for being a missionary was like a gift card with a set limit. I did my time and now the card is empty. Lord willing, I will never have to go back on the mission field. I am not called to living in third world countries, so marrying a guy who has that particular gift would be stupid.

At church on Sunday I told my pastor that I want to start working in my gifts to serve the church. As a single person, I have tons of time on my hands to do that. I told him that I wanted to help with the next DESIGN workshop as well as with the Christmas program. Christmas is so not my holiday, but I’m a writer and I can direct. It’s time to step up. And just this past week I found one assessment that actually considered writing a spiritual gift because the author of the book of Luke and Acts in the New Testament was a doctor who stepped outside of his natural talent to write two books of the bible. For me, writing is a natural talent… but there are times when I am so amped to share what God has done or what he has taught me that I know the Spirit is engaged in my writing.

I believe that God has called me to be a writer…. an author… a public speaker who travels across the country, maybe even around the world. But Bipolar Girl is physically/mentally incapable of doing any of that on her own. I need a keeper or at least a companion. Preferably, a husband. When I had my surgery a friend traveled with me because I wouldn’t have been able to handle the stress of traveling and all the details. Does God have a man in mind who will be able to help me move forward towards getting my books published and then on to a public speaking career? I don’t know. Lots of female Christian speakers have spouses who are a part of their speaking ministry. It’s possible. All I know right now is that God has gifted me in certain ways and that in order to fulfill my purpose (single or married) I need to walk in those ways.I need to use my gifts whenever and wherever I can. I need to bloom where I am.

There is a saying: your talents and abilities are God’s gifts to you. What you do with them is your gift to him. My desire is to find a man who has a gift mix that will be complimented by my own and that we will use our gifts to impact this world for Jesus.

Want to know your spiritual gifts??

http://www.kodachrome.org/spiritgift/

http://mintools.com/spiritual-gifts-test.htm

Takin’ Care of Business: Final Chapter

“As a single believer, do not allow your love life to mess up the call of God on your life. Keep Jesus in the center of your living.”

That’s how my pastor summarized the message he gave a few weeks back that kicked off my 8 Point series. And again, I ask where was he back in 2004 when I was so busy making a train wreck out of my relationship with God and my ex-boyfriend??! That one (my ex) was a keeper... but if I’m honest, he was never mine to keep. Of all the areas my pastor said a single believer should address prior to marriage, I’d have to say that I flunked every single issue back in 2004. There was nothing about me that was ready for marriage, yet that’s the course I wanted to pursue. My focus, however, was all wrong. It wasn’t about falling in love and wanting to make somebody else happy. It was selfish and very self-centered… mostly on my desire to have sex that I didn’t have to feel guilty about. I wasn’t thinking about what I had to give to a marriage. It was all about what I could get. Such a marriage would have been ill-fated and immature. And guess who I’d have blamed when it all fell apart? God, of course. I mean, he did let me get married in the first place, right? Now I know see that just as it takes two to tango, it takes two to tank a relationship. We were both at fault for ignoring how completely different and ill-suited we were.

My pastor said that we need to put serving God at the center of our lives and then proceed to pursue his calling, or DESIGN, on our lives.  DESIGN stands for “Desire,” “Experiences,” “Spiritual Gifts,” “Individual Style,” “Growth Stage,” and “Natural Abilities.” I went through a three hour seminar at my church to try to figure out just how God had “DESIGNed” me. Having spent so many years wallowing in my own personal Bipolar Hell… I felt like I’d wasted a lot of my life just trying to survive. I had no idea what the higher purpose of my life was. I’d tried being a missionary but failed at that. I’d tried teaching elementary school for over a decade and hated it. The number of other jobs I’ve had in my life time is as staggering as it is laughable. I know what I can’t do or hate doing… but I have no idea what God is really calling me to do. Knowing my purpose in live before I try to yoke my life with somebody else’s seems wise.

I spent the last six years working on my manuscript thinking that God wanted me to be an author and a motivational speaker. I regularly attended one of the premier writing conferences in the country trying to pursue that dream. But I am no closure to really knowing if this is truly God’s call on my life than I was when I starting writing. And as for putting Jesus “at the center of my life…” I have to say that I don’t even really know what that would even look like for me. I do not see me ever being the type who spends hours on her knees praying or reading my Bible and cross referencing it in the Greek. I’m more likely to want to watch reruns of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” on my laptop as I am to want to listen to Christian music. I don’t rush out to get tickets to hear the latest visiting Christian speaker. And to be honest, I don’t think those things are ever going to be me or how I express my love for the Lord.

When I was dating my ex (I call him “Collin” in my manuscript)… I was so quick to abandon any and all desire to know God’s call on my life. I was too busy fooling around. I could get up at 4am to talk to Collin in Australia, but I can’t be bothered to wake up that early to talk to Jesus who is right here with me. I could really start to down on myself if I just looked at all the stuff I’m doing wrong. The up side to all of this is that God uses screw ups like me to accomplish his purposes all the time. This morning I was reading about King David in the Old Testament. When most people mention him they don’t mention his adultery, premeditated murder, and general horn dog lifestyle. This morning, in the same chapters where I read about his multiple wives, I also read about how David “sought the Lord.” He continually talked to God and when he screwed up he admitted it. Sounds like me. He also used the talents and abilities that he’d been born with to show his love of (and to) God. He was a writer. Most of the Psalms were his creation. When I read the Psalms I think David might have been Bipolar. In one verse he’ll be all depressed, the next he’ll be ranting and asking God to wipe out his enemies, and by the end he’s all happy slappy. Seriously sounds like me before my meds, so there’s hope for me yet.

If I don’t know God’s call on my life… it’s probably because he hasn’t told me yet. Oh, I’ve gotten bits and pieces here and there that have helped me make decisions in my life that I thought were his call on my life. And while those choices often turned out badly, they did help to advance the course of the Adventures. I feel like my life is on track and that I’m moving towards a more Christ centered life even if I don’t try to witness to everybody I see. I have been reviewing my notes from the DESIGN workshop because of all the points that my pastor mentioned, I think this one is the most important.

His key point was that if you marry somebody who has a dramatically different DESIGN than your own, you just might find yourself abandoning your call in order to preserve peace in your home. If God’s call on my life really is writing and public speaking, that never would have worked with Collin. He would have been threatened by it. We would have fought. Loudly and regularly. It wouldn’t have been pretty. And with us we always said that divorce was not an option… we’d just have to be discrete and hide the body. After we broke up, I started to wonder if I had to choose. Did I have to choose between my calling or being married… like maybe God wouldn’t let me have both.  Now I wonder how I could possibly have made God out to be such a tyrant.

I hate when people say that God might want me to “surrender my desire to be married.” Generally, that’s coming from people who already are married. That kind of advice means a fat lot of good to me. God is not opposed to me getting married. If he was, he’d make his opinion known. I do not believe that I have the “gift of celibacy,” so I’m done listening to people who tell me to give up hope of ever getting married. My timing, my attitude, my motives, my immaturity and a whole bunch of other things have always been wrong, so God, in his mercy, has kept me single. Bipolar and divorce do not go well together.

Of course, the whole DESIGN thing has me thinking. Yep, you got it… another series. I’ve been wondering if publishing this book is really what God has for me. I can’t say that a ginormous light went off for me the first time that I did the DESIGN workshop, but I did begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel after I did the workshop a second time. By the third time I did the workshop I knew that the light wasn’t a train. I think my awareness of my God-given design has been colored by my mental instability. My jobs, living situations, and relationships have all been so tumultuous and created so much drama that my original design was hidden under a bunch of baggage. As I dealt with the baggage in my life I got a different part of the puzzle when I did  the workshops.  Now that I’m relatively drama free and mentally stable to boot, my DESIGN warrants another look. I figure I’ve got at least six major posts to unpack the topic and lots of commercials in between. With this “8 Point” series I hope I’ve challenged some singles to look at their lives before they rush into a relationship that might lead to marriage. If I’d done that I would have avoided my last relationship and all the heartache altogether. With this next series I hope I get people thinking about why they’re here and how they know. I want to get people thinking about their God-given design and how they intend to walk in it. And for those of you who don’t believe in God… all but the “S” would apply to you, so I hope you don’t abandon my blog during the series. I hope it’s an eye opener for me and for you.

Takin’ Care of Business: Maturity

I think maturity can look like many things. My pastor said that you need to look at your own level of maturity (both age-wise and spiritual maturity) as you prepare yourself to consider marriage. Personally, I think this is one reason why so many marriages fail. Two immature people get married and then refuse to grow up. Oh, they might think that they are mature, but they really aren’t. I also think maturity manifests in many different areas. There’s emotional and mental maturity, physical maturity, relational maturity, intellectual maturity… I think I could come up with a bunch more if I thought about it.

Unfortunately, Bipolar Girl is stunted in the maturity category. Of all the 8 points, this is the hardest one for me to address because maturity isn’t something you can force. You have to grow into it. Some people are said to be mature beyond their years or “mature for their age.” That was me when I was younger. I was intelligent… gifted, actually. I was like a little old lady in a kid’s body. Unfortunately, my maturity was like the “Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” I didn’t get more mature as I grew older, I got less. Pride in my intellect made my head swell. I was a bit on the insufferable side. People around me like family and classmates resented me, not because they were jealous, but because I was obnoxious.

My ability to relate to people never really matured when I was in school. I still have a hard time relating to other people. I can blame it on my Asperger’s Syndrome or the Bipolar Bubble… but there comes a point when I have to admit that my basic self-centered nature is one of the main roots of my immaturity. Relational maturity means that you understand that the world does not revolve around you and you actually live your life that way. I might understand that truth, but I still live as if the world revolves around me. It’s a daily struggle for me to move beyond that. I guess it’s because my depressions and suicidal episodes always seemed so huge. All my energy had to go into keeping myself alive. Focusing on other people’s needs never seemed to measure up to that. I was terribly immature in my last relationship. My behavior was embarrassing (at best) and down right petty (at worst). I didn’t intend to be that way… it just sort of happened. Immature people never intend to hurt people. They’re just so busy looking at themselves that they don’t realize they’ve run over people in their path.

Spiritual maturity? I look back at how stunted my faith has been and I cringe. I have lots of biblical knowledge because I know my bible, but that’s not spiritual maturity. That just shows that I can read. I know the New Testament really well but I’m pretty ignorant about the Old Testament prophetical books. And all the stuff I know can never be substituted for actual spiritual maturity. I look back over the last five years and how spiritually immature I’ve been and, again, I cringe. Am I more mature now? The emphasis is on “more.” I think it’s a growth process that I’m never going to finish here on earth. I can still see areas of immaturity in me. I am not as mature as I’d like to be, but like I said, I don’t think this is something you can force. I have to grow into it. Knowing that I’ve been immature is the first step. Making different choices in similar situations is the next.With ever better choice that I make… the more mature I will become.

I am not the immature girl who returned to Maui in 2005. Essentially, I went into a four year temper tantrum because God wouldn’t let things work out according to my plan. I had to learn the hard way that tantrums don’t work on God. I also had to face the consequences of my immature behavior. Those consequences were so bad, I hope to never  make the same kind of immature choices ever again.

I guess this point is the one that scares me… because I’ve been so very immature. I’ve hurt people and I’ve said and done things that cannot be unsaid or undone. The last thing I want to bring into a marriage relationship is immaturity. The world is not about me. It doesn’t even revolve around me. My choices… my words, my actions  will affect my spouse and I don’t want them to be the choices, words, and actions of an immature child. I’m 41 years old! Yes, my Bipolar Disorder has held me back from maturing in a lot of areas… but when do I stop hiding behind my mental illness? I’m fully aware of what I’m like. If fact, one might say that I’m too self-aware. Too much gazing at my own belly button trying to figure out how all the lint got in there is not a good thing. It’s an immature, self-centered thing.

A mature wife will want to consider the needs of her spouse. She’ll want to know how he is feeling and what he is thinking. She will want to be an equal partner, giving and taking to make the relationship work. And I had to learn the hard way that a mature spouse would never blog about every fight and argument they had. Some things are best left unblogged. In this season that I am able to live alone I don’t want to regress back into living in a bubble–thinking that  everything is all about me. Once/if I get married, I’m going to have to be accountable in this area. The thing about being immaturity is that sometimes I can think I’m being mature when really I’m not. I’m going to need another set of eyes telling me when I’m being immature and it can’t be my husband. “You’re being so immature,” would not be the most constructive thing my future husband could say. It’s  going to have to come from a female friend who knows me and whom I respect.Somebody who could objectively tell me when I was acting immature and trust that I’d be mature enough to receive the criticism.

This area? I’m really struggling with it. Maybe I’ll always struggle with it. If I have to wait until I’m fully mature to get married… then  I should just give up now. Hopefully, it’s enough that I’m aware that this is a problem area for me and willing to keep addressing it. Maybe someday somebody could say that I’m mature beyond my years and it actually be true.

Takin’ Care of Business: Education and Training

Keeping in mind that this is all based on my pastor’s interpretation of the scriptures in 1 Corinthians, I have to admit that this one had no real emotional tie in for me. I’m 41 years old. I’m not going back to school again. When I did go to school the first time it was a nightmare. Berkeley was supposed to be my ticket out of the inner city of Los Angeles. It seems a bit trite to say “out of the ghetto” but it was supposed to be my out. What I got was a head trip into Bipolar World. Add the fact that I was a Rhetoric major (Who majors in RHETORIC??? I mean really??? Was I trying to make myself crazy??) and a Resident Assistant (to my own load of baggage now add the collective baggage of the two dorm floors of freshman I had to supervise) and a sorority girl (Do I need to comment on this one??) and you’ve got five really tormented years in academic hell. My relationships with guys was all over the map because I prided myself on leaving no eligible guy left untouched. Clearly marriage was not on my mind at that time of my life. My schooling was not going to impact a real relationship because I didn’t have any.

My pastor’s point was that some folks get married while one or both are in school and the added pressure of education creates unnecessary stress on the couple. Think wife putting husband through med school or law school. The end result is so cliche it’s tragic. Spouse finally makes it into the profession of choice and then wants a divorce. I haven’t seen this happen to anybody I know… but I’ve seen it happen in enough tv shows to know what the drill looks like. School is never going to have the power to muck up my relationships.

I hated college, but being mentally ill and unmedicated can ruin lots of things for you, not just college. Still, I did graduate from Berkeley and swore I’d never go back to school again, ever.  All my grades all the way through high school (pre-Bipolar manifestation) were stellar. At Berkeley, however, my gpa was horrible. Suicidal people tend to skip class and flunk tests. I saw my performance at Cal as substandard and embarrassing. I was never ever ever going back to school. I guess “never ever” came in 2000 when I went back to get my teaching credential. Only thing is, I found a program (CalState TEACH) that was through the Cal State University… and it was online. It was very rigorous and there were some weekend classes and extension courses that I had to take plus I had to actually be employed full time as a teacher, but I could work the program around my mood swings. There’s no way I could have worked all day and then done night school. And the idea of trying to conduct a relationship at that time would have been laughable. Finding a program that could accommodate my mental health needs was a godsend.

In order to explain my bad gpa from Cal I had to be upfront about my mental illness. At first I wasn’t sure I’d get in, but I did and I was able to dedicate myself to the program. I could not have done that if I’d been in a relationship at that time. Something would have suffered. As is, I completed the program with high honors and after I exited the program my supervising faculty member told me that his ex-wife and daughter both have Bipolar Disorder! He was such a support to me and always understanding of how crazy my world often seemed. He could support me without expecting anything in return. A spouse would have wanted time and emotional energy that I wouldn’t have been able to give. I had the input of a supportive male without all the drama of a romantic relationship. That worked for me.

So in that, I agree with my pastor. Trying to go to school or get additional training would be hard on me without a spouse. It was hard on me and there were times I didn’t think I could finish the program. Adding a relationship to the mix would just have complicated things. Fortunately, the time, effort, and added expense of education are all behind me. I’ve paid off my student loans and the only time I’m going to spend in a classroom is because I’m teaching. As far as taking care of business goes… this point is case closed. Unless, of course,  I meet a guy who wants me to work while he goes to school… to which I’d have to say a polite, but firm, “no.” He’s going to be at least 41 unless I revert to type and marry a younger guy. School should be a thing in his past as well as mine. I’d want him to have taken care of his business before he met me.

Takin’ Care of Business: Substance Abuse

I just read an interesting post about a “new” narcotic: the hair cut.

Makes you think. I mean, seriously, when I was growing up we heard of people with drug and alcohol addictions and that was pretty much it. Now a days, there’s a 12 Step Program for just about everything. Anything, even a good thing, done is obsessive or excessive amounts can be addicting. I tried the hair cutting bit — a year and a half ago I cut my hair so short it might as well have been shaved. I cried. I kept crying. I pretty much cried without ceasing until it grew back. Hair cutting is NOT a “narcotic” I’m ever going to get addicted to. In college I had a drinking problem… but Berkeley is a drinking school. The question wasn’t did I have a drinking problem, but rather, who didn’t?? All it took was once case of near alcohol poisoning for me to get over my issues with drinking. I haven’t had a drink since college. Drugs? Never touched the stuff. I’m glad because I do have an addictive personality. If I’d gotten involved with drugs it wouldn’t have ended well. One of my sisters got involved with drugs. She’s dead now. Drugs hold no thrill for me.

The next point my pastor brought up was substance abuse. If you’ve got substance abuse problems you should address them before considering marriage. My dad was a drunk. My mother seemed to end up with drunks. I am not a drunk and have no intentions of marrying one. Case closed. The case is closed on the drug thing too. I am not going to go all bible thumper and tell non-believers not to do drugs because as far as I’m concerned, adults will do what they want to do. But in a perspective mate, I insist on us being on the same page: drug and alcohol abuse bad.

Am I anti-drinking like some Christians I know? No. I see no biblical mandate against drinking. I do see a biblical mandate against getting sloppy drunk. I don’t drink now because I don’t like the taste of it (except for that cherry flavored beer from Amsterdam) and I take medication daily that prohibits me from drinking. I’m not going to force my perspective spouse to become a tea-totaler just because I don’t drink, but if he likes to go out and rage with his buddies every weekend, that’s a clue to me that we probably won’t be suited. I’d turn into a nag and he would drink to drown me out. With all his talk about substance abuse, my pastor didn’t mention my drug of choice.

I have a sexual addiction. My drug of choice has always been inappropriate sexual behavior. Needless to say, back in the days when I was running amok, marriage would not have been a good idea. And while a swinger lifestyle might have sounded like a good idea to me at one time, it doesn’t now. In college, guys always thought I was a fun date because I’d watch porn with them. Oh, what a difference a few decades make. I have been trying to work on my sexual addiction for years. It has only been in the last five years, however, that I’ve made any real headway, so trying to get married while I was actively abusing wouldn’t have been fair to my spouse.

I’m currently involved in an on-line community for Christians who struggle with sexual addiction. You always hear these stories about  pastors getting caught up in sex scandals with church secretaries or male strippers or some other such hype. This stuff happens because there are addiction problems in the church, yet the church generally doesn’t deal with it. The church generally doesn’t talk about it. I’ve been a Christian for over 15 years now and this pastor that I have now is the first, as far as I can remember, who has brought up sex in real life terms. He talks about addictions and hang-ups. Today he talked about biblical reasons for divorce. I’ve NEVER heard of anything beyond adultery and I think my pastor handled it in a clear and compassionate way.

The longer I tried to hide my sexual addiction the more out there I got. Granted, most of that… much of that… was before I became a believer. But I didn’t accept Jesus and then turn into Mother Theresa. Some might even think that I was a hypocrite. A Christian school teacher with a sexual addiction. What kind of example was I being? The best one I knew how to be. While I lived in SF, getting my bipolar under control was the priority. I was not focusing on addressing the addiction because suicidal tendencies trumped my desire to watch gay men have sex. I’d eliminated my most deviate behaviors by that time. What remained was an issue, but it wasn’t the number one priority. At my last school I finally came clean about my addiction and, to their credit, they handled it well. They couldn’t help me… but how many people would know how to handle a mentally ill woman in crisis who also had a sexual addiction?

It has only been in the last four years that I have broken free of my addiction to porn. I’m not saying I couldn’t be tempted by it again. I’m saying that I don’t put myself in positions to be tempted. I don’t want to view it so I avoid it. Again, many non-believers will wonder why this is a problem… and again, I say, if non-believers want to watch porn, adults are going to do what they’re going to do. My belief system is pretty solidly on the side against porn. I want my actions… I need my actions… to line up with my beliefs. It’s not hypocritical to have sexual addiction issues. Christians are human. What’s hypocritical is acting like you don’t have issues when you do. Addressing this area of my life before marriage is vitally important. I used to think that all I had to do was find myself a hot Christian husband and then move on to all that God-sanctioned sex. I’ve learned from that on-line community that marriage does not cure sexual addiction. In fact, sexual addiction can become a disease that destroys marriages.

It has taken me years to climb out of this pit and God has been loving and gracious all the way through it. I’ve had to live with some of the consequences of my past behavior, but I’m forgiven. As far as addictions go, mine has definitely been “Addiction Lite.” It could have been a lot worse than it was.  I have no idea why it never progressed beyond what it did, but what I did do was enough. Explaining my past to a potential mate along with my mental illness will not be easy. That’s another reason why I favor eHarmony. I’m not going to go all full disclosure in my profile, but I do intend to lay my cards on the table. If a guy has a problem with my Bipolar Disorder, my Asperger’s Syndrome, and my sexual addiction… then it’s best to know early on and cut bait. I would also like to think that said potential spouse will be honest enough to put his own cards on the table. Maybe he’s got some addiction issues of his own.  Given my background, I’m not likely to judge him… unless he’s a psycho killer or something — in which case, running would trump judging any day.

Takin’ Care of Business: Society at Large

Moving on to the fourth point in what I call the “8 Points to Being Marriageable” series I’m looking at the one point that my pastor brought up in which I have the least amount of emotional buy in: society. My pastor said we need to know how to read the times. Evidently, the times in which those verses were written were bad. Nero was the head cheese and he liked to kill Christians for sport. Since I live in a western country, I have little to fear as far as religious persecution goes. Many Christians I know might not like Obama, but he’s not likely to round us all up and feed us to hungry lions. So what does reading the times mean? My pastor’s point was merely to look at what’s going on in the world I live in and gauge if marriage is a good idea. Civil war breaking out would not be a good time to get married. The day after 911 wouldn’t have been such a good idea either. Yet, I quickly run out of examples because I’m pretty ignorant about the world around me.

Why? Two words: Bipolar Bubble.

I have cared little for the events in the world when the events in my own head  have often seen me in depressions so dark that I couldn’t see sunlight. I have not cared who was in office since whoever was president would not make finding a cure for Bipolar Disorder a number one priority. My suicidal episodes would continue  no matter who was in office or what was happening in the rest of the world. Recessions could not compete with my depressions. And threats of war could not stop the internal battle being waged in my mind every day. There was nothing happening on the world stage that could pierce the dark curtain that shrouded the stage in my head. Oh, I was always vaguely aware of what was going on in the world because I’d catch snippets of conversations,  but I avoided the news because most of the stuff that passes for news is all bad. My nightmares were too much for me to handle. I did not need to add the world’s nightmares to my stress.

Now? I’m still fairly ignorant about world events and affairs. It’s safer for my mental health that I remain ignorant. I do not know why so many of my Christian friends don’t like Obama. I have no idea who the Vice President is. I know we are fighting a war somewhere in the middle east, but I’d be hard placed to name the locations or the key players. And it took me a while to find out what “going green” meant and I have no idea what’s going on as far as advances in technology. Somebody just explained the difference between a 4G and 3G network and I still don’t get it. As long as Bipolar World can get internet… I don’t care what kind of network it is. I have lived a very sheltered existence the past ten years because before I retreated into the bubble the sights and sounds of the world were overwhelming. I’d watch the news and then be nearly catatonic because I couldn’t handle the depression that it caused to well up in me.

Does this mean I have to start reading the New York Times and the Wall Street journal in order to prep myself for marriage? I sincerely hope not, because it’s never going to happen. What’s my take on this point? Since a bunch of folks I know recently got married… I think I have to do the “Jaws” test. Picture the scene: lots of happy people at the beach. Some go in the water and splash around. They’re having a good time until an ominous fin appears on the horizon and then screams erupt as people get chomped on by the shark. If people had seen the fin they would have stayed on shore and the movie would have been pretty boring. If I apply that principle to reading the times/getting married… it looks like people think it’s safe to get into the water. Since my pastor married two of those couples in the last year, I can only assume that he thinks it’s safe to get into the water too. The times seem ripe for marriage.

Bringing my focus closer to the world around me… life on Maui seems good. People are happy here. I see a lot of marriages that are thriving. I think mine could thrive here too. The pickins are pretty slim though. I refuse to date a guy from my church. Not that they’re bad or a bunch of trolls.  If it doesn’t work out the awkwardness would be epic. Somebody would have to leave and it’s not going to be me. I love my church. Short of an act of God, I’m not budging. Since most of the guys in my church are either married or too young, this isn’t really an issue. Where to look for a potential spouse? I’ve learned my lesson from meeting men via my blog. Bars are out. Set ups are exactly that. So what’s a nice Christian girl supposed to do? Oddly enough, society at large has an answer and I know what it is. Society at large  has made the shift to embrace online dating. In the past if you lived in a small community like I do, you either settled for what you could get or you stayed single. “Spinster” is just not a label I want to wear. Online dating has taken off and is not the joke it once was. Services like eHarmony are popping up all over the place. Three of the couples I know who got married in the last year met through eHarmony. There are even sites that cater to interracial relationships, which has always been my preference. There is no shame in meeting your spouse online.

When I’ve finished “blooming where I am” and “becoming all that I can be…” and “beating the best so that I can be the best,” then I’m opening an account with eHarmony. That way I can lay all my cards on the table. We can openly discuss the 8 points and make sure we are both on the same page. My future spouse will need to understand why I shield myself from most of the sights and sounds of society at large… but maybe  he’ll be the one who can help me safely navigate it. I’m not there yet… at the point where eHarmony is a viable option, but it’s nice to know that I have socially acceptable options out there when I am ready.

Takin’ Care of Business: Money Matters

I hate to say it, but I agree with Deborah Harry that 80′s singer when she belts out, “The best things in life are free… but you can give the to the birds and the bees. I want money.” This is not to say that money is a god to me or that it the center of my life, because it isn’t. Generally, I don’t have any money so it’s hard to love what you don’t have.

My pastor listed this as one of the 8 things you need to address in order to get yourself ready for marriage. I hadn’t planned on tackling this topic this soon, but circumstances conspired to bring it to the forefront of my mind. Pastor said that you needed to look at how you handle money. Consider if you’re in debt and how to handle it. My financial history is as murky as my relationship history. Bipolar Girl has an itchy finger when it comes to compulsive spending. Back in college when I had my first taste of financial freedom I also had my first experience of mania. Credit cards seem like a bottomless wallet when you’re manic. Oddly enough, I was worse with cash. If there was cash in my wallet, I had to spend it. Some of my expenses were noble: the many homeless people that peppered the streets of Berkeley often ended up the recipients of my manic generosity. Most of the time, however, I was spending my money seducing guys (which can get really expensive), buying clothes (back then I really cared to dress the very best), or extravagances like the summer I went backpacking around Europe. The memories from that trip were NOT “priceless” no matter what Mastercard says. It took me a long time to pay off my credit cards and all I have a pictures since most of my memories have faded.

When I left college I had student loans which I actually spent on stuff like seducing guys, buying clothes, going to Europe, and joining a sorority. Deciding to become a nanny after college was not a wise career move, but depression had me gripped so tightly I thought escaping to a tropical island would do the trick. It did: it got me deeper into debt. And the deeper in debt I got the more I stressed out. The bottom fell out of my financial world when I quit my nanny job without a back up plan. There’s a saying: People don’t plan to fail. They fail to plan. That was me. Bipolar Girl jumps out of the plane without a parachute and then wonders why she can’t fly. Without money, a job, or a place to live I was really lucky not to have ended up homeless and sleeping on the beach. Good people (rich people) took me in until I could get back on my feet.

And that has been the story of my life. Where I used to make bad financial decisions based on the temperature of my mood, I now make financial decisions based on faith and when that fails… fear. But any decisions based on fear aren’t really  worth discussing here. I want to focus on the faith decisions. In my adult life since becoming a Christian, I’ve worked as a kennel attendant at the humane society, a cashier in a department store, other retail sales, an advocate at the women’s shelter, intake at Child Protective Services, a Christian school teacher, and a private school teacher. I believe that God led me to every one of those jobs. The other common denominator in all of these jobs is that not one of them pays well. Oh, some of them might be noble and humanitarian in nature, but it didn’t help my debt. And then there was my stint as a missionary. No salary. God led the mentally unstable girl who freaks out over finances into a job where she wasn’t getting paid. Over  time I’ve paid off my car (2003 Saturn) and my student loan (over $10,000), but because my jobs have been so low paying I am still in debt to the tune of $14,000.

Oddly enough my credit rating is REALLY good. Anal person that I am, I stopped using my credit cards and never carry cash. If I can’t pay for it, I don’t buy it. I exercise a self-control I never used to have before I started taking medication. Or at least I did. Quitting my job in 2009 followed by nearly a year of being underemployed topped by a surgery with 8 weeks worth of recovery has pushed me back into the financial hole. I started doing what I swore I’d never do: use my credit card for consumables like food and gasoline. With $80 in the bank I have been praying to God to help me, but wondering why it was taking him so long. He popped for a surgery that cost around $15,000 plus the hospital stay. He helped me move into my new place when I had no money. He has the money. I know he’s good for it. I just don’t understand how God provides because I don’t see a pattern. But I try to step out in faith anyway. The past two days I’ve been really stressed about finances. And since money problems are the number one marriage buster, it would be rather stupid and naive of me to think that the way I have handled money in the past and the way that I handle it now won’t be an issue for the person I marry.

The good news is that God sent his answer in his timing. I did not want to borrow money from friends. I don’t want to be that friend. Y’know… the one whose hand is always out. I would pay the bills late and suck up the charges now that I’m working again. Still…I  didn’t understand why God didn’t just prompt me to put more money away in savings before my surgery. Surely, he knew what I would need. This morning and last night I told him that I needed money but I didn’t want to borrow it from anybody… and would you believe that my state tax return arrived in the mail today?? It had gone to my old address and just got forwarded. Jesus is the God of the United States Postal Service!!! I got enough money back to pay the most pressing bills, buy lunch for next week, and gas for the car!!! I get paid next Friday. My financial life will be good again. Yippeee!!! Ok, my faith was a bit on the “oh ye of little faith” side… but God answered me.

I do not want to take God out  of my finances. My future husband will have to feel the same way. Having the poorly paying jobs that I’ve had insured that I was never going to get out of debt and taking my debt into my marriage was almost a guarantee of drama. Clearly, if I want to get married and move on to all that God-sanctioned sex I think I’m going to have… I have to address my finances. Which is clearly a reason why God had me quit my last job because it was one of the lowest paying jobs I’ve ever had. Tomorrow I have an interview at work. I’m applying for a full time Instructor position. They pay me hysterically well as a sub. I’m not sure what I’d make if I got the job… but it has to be more than what I’ve made in the past. I told God that once I got a full time job I’d start tithing. I don’t actually believe in tithing. I believe it existed, but I don’t believe there is a New Testament mandate to do it. And every time I’ve been guilted into tithing all hell has broken loose in my finances. Bipolar Girl cannot handle the stress of financially triggered suicidal episodes so tithing is on hold.

My church did this study called “Crown Financial (CF).” It was a money management program based on biblical principals. I thought it was sound… if you actually have money. Me? At the time I was as broke as the Ten Commandments. I found CF impractical and stressful to try to implement it since I was a casual employee with no set income. Once I get a job I intend to review all the materials and restructure my financial house. I can get out of debt and I can manage money. I’ve done it before, but depression and stress have always put me right back into the debt hole again. Self-awareness is as important as actually being out of debt. I know what my weak areas are and I know my strengths. I do not want to handle the finances when I get married. It’s too stressful, but I do want to know what’s going on and I do want to be a part of the decision making process. That means I don’t hook up with a man who doesn’t know how to handle money. I’m not a gold digger… so it doesn’t mean he has to be rich. It just means that he will have to know how to handle our money. Since I intend to be out of debt or very nearly out of debt when I get married, I shouldn’t go hooking up with a guy who has more debt than I do. Debt free would be ideal.

Anybody who says that money doesn’t matter and that they can live on love… is either more mentally ill than I am or they’re 17. At 41, I have had periods where I’ve actually had money and other periods where I’ve been broke. Personally, I think poverty sucks and I hate not being able to buy what I need when I need it… but I’ve also learned how to be content with life even though I’m poor. I really do have all that I need. Once I pay off my debt I’m not going to rush out and start buying stuff just to buy stuff. There’s no need. Money matters… but I don’t ever want it to matter too much.

Life is Too Short to Dance with Ugly Men…

On some level, I’ve always thought that God was out to get me. His plan was that I would end up single and alone. In my mind, I would end up an old lady with 99 cats who had to eat cat food casseroles because my social security checks wouldn’t stretch far enough to afford to feed me and the cats. Of course, I feared this before I even became a Christian. It was the sexual addiction — of course, back then, I didn’t know anything about sexual addiction. I just thought I was a perv and that I’d end up alone and lonely because nobody willingly marries a perv.

When I became a Christian, I figured Jesus would work his mojo and heal me of all my brokenness. Yes, the list of sexually perverted things that I no longer do is long… but here I am still single. Exactly what is Jesus’ plan and when is he going to let me in on it?? My pastor continued his walk through the book of 1 Corinthians today and I got an earful. He totally dialed my number when he said that we fear God’s plan for our future… like he wants us to settle for junk (my paraphrase). I have always thought that God was going to make me marry some short, fat, balding guy with bad breath or someone equally unattractive. It has never dawned on me that if God actually led somebody into my life that it might actually be somebody I find attractive… and that I wouldn’t have to result to sexual games to ensnare him. That’s what I’d done in college and I couldn’t live with that type of lifestyle again.

This passage in 1 Cor used to tweak me out because I always interpreted it to mean that God wanted single people to stay single if they were single when they met Jesus. This never made sense to me because that would mean that anybody who became a Christian under the age of 18 pretty much was doomed to be single for life. My pastor went on to explain how it wasn’t a forever after pronouncement. It was one of those “bloom where you are” messages with a nice little rider: for now. The thought of being alone and struggling with my sexual addiction for the rest of my life used to really depress me. Suicidally depress me. What good little Christian girl would be content to struggle with sexual sin? If Jesus wasn’t going to be working any mojos (and 15 years is a loooong time to wait) then I’d be better off dead.

What I took from my pastor’s message is that I can be content with my life now for now. It’s ok to want to be married, but it’s also ok to admit that at no other point in my life was I ever even ready to be married. And God knew this.  I have a mental illness and for most of the last decade I’ve been really mentally unstable. Given the divorce rate, it’s not a stretch to think that Bipolar Girl would have ended up in divorce court or a straight jacket. God, in his infinite wisdom and mercy, caused my last relationship to sink like the Titanic because to let me actually go through with it and get married would have opened me up to a world of hurt. We weren’t ready and we weren’t suited. But I was so busy being the god of my own life that I didn’t want to hear God when he said, “Not now.” My pastor says we need to learn to read the times and 2004 was not a good year for Bipolar Girl to get married. If it took me three years to get over the fallout over the break up… imagine how long it would have taken me to get over the marriage.

This helps me with the “bloom where I am” concept. Right now I want to get married eventually… but I am content to be single today. I finally moved into my own place. My career is about to take off. My major health problems are a thing of the past. My addiction has bee downgraded to whatever is just below an addiction… and I succeeded in writing my manuscript. My life FINALLY feels what most of you would call “normal.” I can be content with normal. That’s all Bipolar Girl has ever wanted to be. And if Jesus decides to send a guy my way, I no longer fear that he’s going to make me marry an ugly guy with back hair. I would love to say that I’ve lost that shallow part of my character where this is even an issue… but I dated an ugly guy with back hair  when I was in college and I treated him horribly. I’d like to think that I’m not as shallow as I was in college… but from where I sit, I haven’t come that far where potential husbands are concerned.

Trust. Pastor said we need to trust whatever God’s plan for us is and to submit to it. I honestly don’t think God’s got 99 cats in my future, but if he told me that he wanted me to be single for the rest of my life I’m no longer ready to slit my wrists over the idea. I’m a dog person and 99 dogs is just not feasible. And since I’ve decided to only marry somebody I really love (and not out of desperation)… it won’t matter if he’s a short, fat, balding, guy with back hair. If I really love him then none of that will matter. Of course, one would like to hope that Jesus would send me a guy who I find attractive,  but if I trust him to lead me to someone to love, then looks won’t matter.

Tonight I am single. I’m typing at my kitchen table listening to a gecko chirp somewhere over the refrigerator. The window is open and it’s warm enough to be wearing shorts. I hear the palm trees rustle faintly in the breeze. Tomorrow I return to work after my two month recovery from my hysterectomy. My mental health has never been more stable and my faith has never been stronger. Sure, I’ve got some issues and challenges, but I can see the end of them and I’m hopeful. Be content where you are? Bloom where you’re at?? Yes, I do believe I can actually do that.