Introduction 2019

Dear friends I haven't met yet,

     I struggle, I mean really struggle, with bipolar disorder. It makes a lot more sense to me now than it did when I thought I had a weird cluster of symptoms under clinical depression, but that's only made things more bearable, not really easier. Today is a day I'm struggling to do anything. I had some small successes thus far, including starting this blog up for the first time. I replaced the trash. I cleaned up my boyfriend's empty soda cans and shoved them into the now-empty 12-packs. I dealt with my arm hair. I even managed to leave the bed at a decent hour.

     When I did, I managed to eat cereal instead of fasting. Later I even had leftovers for lunch--pasta with meats, Cajun but not quite spicy. That lunch is probably part of why I could get up when I still felt tired. Not only tired in my body but tired of myself.

     The big reason I left bed instead of fiddling on my phone from under the covers? There's a book club I'm trying to break into. It's called Life's Library and you can read about it here. In short, a community I'm already familiar with started an online book club, and the digital access my library grants had a copy of their next book, A Field Guide to Getting Lost. Of course I could just read in bed, but on the first page I already had a quote I needed to write down. (If you want to talk more about the book with me, you can find me in the Pearl room.)

     "Leave the door open into the unknown, into the dark. That's where the most important things come from, where you yourself come from, and where you will go."

      My bipolar disorder comes with anxiety and even paranoia at times. The unknown scares the shit out of me. Tomorrow I'm scared of going to a local transgender community meeting just to chat and have tea and coffee, and of going to my first martial arts class at the local Y. Today I'm scared of meeting a puppy and facing my parents after another week of not working and not cleaning the house. I mean, I'm scared of writing about my life on the internet in a serious, serial way, too.

     The quote still rang true for me. I didn't expect any of my great loves when they came into my life, and I wasn't quite prepared for how any of them left. I didn't expect a new diagnosis that gave me new hope. I didn't expect the camaraderie I'd get for sharing migraine experiences either, yet that lead into re-solidifying one of my best friendships.

     While I may have been obtuse about it in my poetry, I dealt with the dark future of being homeless, and then the very real present of it almost exactly a year ago. Important things came out of that door, too. The presence of people in my life shuffled, my resilience was tested and found surprisingly sturdy, and I found my friends really would look out for me, even if I was homeless for months instead of weeks.

     This is my new personal blog built for the public, a door left intentionally open to the dark. I want to document how my small successes build up into larger ones even as I struggle with all that I do. How trying, and failing, so many times leads to a slightly better life for me. Every time I fail, I fail better, and every time I succeed now it feels well-earned, even though those successes seem so small sometimes. According to this well known fable, each imperfect pot I create gives me the better idea of what a perfect pot feels and looks like, and that's where the idea for the blog name comes from.

     I think there's a lot of community out there for how productive people find success--studyblrs for students, Bullet Journal blogs for anyone and everyone, self help books from people who make more digits than I do dollars. I don't think there's a lot for people like me, who struggle to do one productive thing in a day, and I'd like to reach more people like me in the world, because there's plenty of us. Whether its disabling conditions or not having the energy around the usual obligations, I'm hoping to reach readers who relate as I share my journey and get better at making my imperfect pots.

     Here's what's working for me at this time. (In future blog posts, I'll write in detail about methods I'm trying or keep coming back to.)

• Bullet journalling, the bare minimum. Each week gets 3/4 of two pages, and each day gets a mere five lines on a page.
• A "bare minimum" daily to-do list. I have six items and can "upgrade" each for better days.
• Keeping a "life chart," where I track bipolar symptoms such as appetite and sleep quality.
• Daily caffeination. It helps with migraines and gets me moving in the morning.
• Reading more. I'm trying out one book a week for 2019.

• Sinner by Maggie Stiefvater
• A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit
• A ton of reddit posts