Twenty
Back in the 1980s when I was just a teen, I had a lot of mental health issues before I even knew what they were. They were my normal – being agitated, or having unexplainable bouts of melancholy, or feeling a disconnect from everybody else. It wasn’t until they exploded into panic attacks that the public hospital psychiatrist was able to give me some muddy clarity. But the worst of those mental health issues, the meltdowns, came at important times developmentally – when I should’ve been making my way out into the world, I was dealing with anxiety, cluster panic attacks, and OCD; when friends were marrying and working steadily,…
Fifteen
Work holds a monthly event, an open mic night for creatives. I fill in for BEST FRIEND (who used to emcee) to the best of my ability – work was her business, she was the boss, and the host of all functions. As an event, participants feel the warmth of the occasion – not just the physical warmth of the work studio, but also the emotional and spiritual warmth that was so much the foundation of what BEST FRIEND (and her husband) built for their business. But there’s this irreconcilable reality that exists: what was (when she was emcee) and what is (not so much me as emcee, but the…