Stringing along

Alright, I thought the next step in the mandolin world was to switch to medium gauge strings.  I was wrong.  I am going back to light ASAP.  I am totally frustrated with my playing and the medium strings initially sounded great but that was because  they were new strings.  My surgically repaired left hand can't handle the needed pressure.  I just ordered some lovely German  made strings, just the thing for my little tender hands.  Ya, da strings is der problem, not me!  I just get so frustrated I can't seem to devote myself to enough practice time.  And I don't seem to have enough time to play either the mandolin or the guitar.  Crazy neighbor keeps me hopping and that has got to stop.

That brings me to boundaries.  No matter how many books I read  about setting them, I don't .  Keep them, that is.  And that is not a string issue, per se.  She keeps me stringing along and I keep getting played like a violin.  I feel sorry for her situational agoraphobia, if there really such a thing.  And I go down to visit and listen to vile, hateful things about the world, which I don't really need to hear.  I am tired of it.  Tonight I will go down and tell her, once again, that I can only come down twice weekly as I need to devote more time to music.  Music is my solace, when the strings are just so.

Speaking of solace, which I was, being bipolar (type II with major depressive episodes) I need my music.  I need my space.  I need my Hyphen.  What this has to do with being bipolar  I am unsure.  Do we define ourselves by our illnesses or rise above them to define them?   I try to define myself constantly.  How we fashion ourselves, our outer selves, our public face.  Constantly changing .  I worry I have no lips.  Does that define my smile, or lack thereof?

I want to speak about being bipolar.  Oh, if only I had been treated younger I might have avoided three psychiatric hospitalizations. My father might say at this point "don't tell them, it will follow you the rest of your life".  Thus we keep secrets that are best told with that public face that has no lips.  Thus we don't recognize problem in ourselves.  We deny ourselves, in my case thrice (to avoid the Jesus confusion).  My family secrets are all out.  I believe my mother was bipolar and self medicated her whole short life.  Secrets that the whole family knew.  Last point for day.  After my father passed away, the facade of secrets fell and people came out of the woodwork to say they were sorry they could not have been more supportive of me when I was in the bosom of my dysfunctional family.  And speaking of my father, the only people who actually sat shiva with me were the Aunties.  One evening at the old house in Detroit, before dark, they came and sat with me when no one else did.

I must return to my practicing.