Bipolar, I am very rarely down. I live my life balanced in hypomanic and holy space.

This space is the woof and warp of my loony loom. Daily decisions, large and small, weave together the texture and color of my daily walk.

Yes.

Walking, talking, balking;

Reading, working, sleeping;

Lurking, leaping, housekeeping;

Netflixing, Hulu hopping, blogging;

Sermonizing, staff meet-ing, clergy colluding;

Pastoring, preaching, rabbi-teaching;

Cafe haunting, eatery slinking, coffee drinking;

Advocating, electioneering, volunteering;

Photo popping, Instagramming, grocery shopping;

Floor mopping, dish washing, laundry folding;

Clothes modeling, junk recycling, riverfront hiking;

Story Districting, Library (of Congress) docent-ing;

Sacrament celebrating, worship gathering;

Mothering, othering, recovering;

Befriending, mending;

Money lending and wallet emptying;

Rearranging, decorating;

Ginger cat psychologizing;

Writing, reflecting, philosophizing;

Showering, singing;

Laughing.

Living.

Loving.

Entertaining angels unaware. 

Rainy days and Mondays rarely get me down.

Yet —

whirling and spinning, even I have to begrudgingly admit, that my psyche, so wound up, must come down.

Tis the season, right?

Darker, wetter December days enter.

I feel a tug that pulls me downward

and closer to the earth.

An undercurrent of small sorrows,

lingering losses,

ripples of sadness,

lonesome and alone.

Bittersweet,

I taste and touch the deeper darker parts

of my happy, happy manic soul.

Like the little blue girl in Inside Out,

“Sadness”  is a place we should not fear to go.

Sadness, sometimes, is exactly the place we need to be.

Tearing up in the shower is okay.

Soul searching on the subway. Also okay.

Channel surfing in your pajamas. Okay too.

Just let it be, 

at least for a little while,

but not too long.

Darker, wetter December days are holy days,

these holidays,

like rainy days and Mondays,

yes,

they sometimes weigh us down, 

but the darkness will be overwhelmed by the light,

by light,

most luminous,

Light Divine.

So from Unorthodox & Unhinged,

A very, very,

merry, merry,

 happy, happy, 

manic-depressive Christmas to you!