Sunflower Powers Thru

Confusing Personal Feelings

I've got a person in my life that I've been trying to shake for almost 20 years. He's like gum stuck to my shoes. The irritation is there, and the knowledge that something's about to blow, and it won't be just a bubble.

He, or we, didn't know he was bipolar too until about a year ago when he went in-patient for depression. All of a sudden my bipolar made more sense to him. He'd heard the word enough from me. Funny, he used to refer to my bipolar as my 47 (and counting) personalities. His bipolar isn;t like that. He's swimming in a kind of wash of financial freedom since his father passed away a few months ago. He keeps saying he's not going to piss his money away, and I keep watching him do it.

He did bring me a present today. I don't know when I'll have the occasion to wear it, unless I take a job as a beertender in a dark club. It's a very short mesh and fringy skirt sort of thing--almost like a bathing suit cover up skirt. It came with a fairy tale he claimjed to be a truth of an old memory. There was a tale about a beautiful cocktail waitress at a Mexican beer joint--back in the days he was drinking. He said she was offering, but he wasn't interested. It was a nice tale, but I think it all happened today instead of twenty years ago. It was a good intent on his part, but he did remember what I'd said about him dressing me up like a Barbie doll. That came out of my mouth one argument. He still doesn't get it, but perhaps he's just a guy.

I'm trying to be a good and responsible friend, and just listen and let him talk. He's ready and needing to make a fresh start, but he can't figure out exactly what he wants to do. Either he'll live in the city and rent the other side of the duples, or he's moving a house out to his property by the lake. He needs to get out of the city.

Everybody needs somebody that they can feel comfortable enough to just think out loud sometimes. But I'm afraid it's becoming more than just listening. I'm a different kind of person when he's around, and I don't like me to be living that wild streak he can set off. He's around almost every day for a few hours, and I'm having trouble getting settled every time he pops in and out.

I won't stand by until I start falling from his problems. I'm going to have to talk to him about being more responsible, and taking a hold of his direction in life. He's between jobs, between residences, and too much between friends. He's running with a bunch of no-good associates that I don't want to have anything to do with. He doesn't want me to have anything to do with them either. But I know him well enough to know that everything he says is either a half-truth, or a half lie. He's playing me against his older brother like we were step parents or something. I understand the problems more than he does.

I think the best way for me to deal with this is to delve into fiction. There's a story in my port about two people named Sandy and Butch. I think I have material for another chapter. However real life works out is up to God; but I can get hold of my end of this situation if I pick up pen and paper, or keyboard actually. It would make me feel better, if nothing else.