From my real, and not so imagined, life as a bipolar princess:
So you know when I mentioned I didn't forget about dating and romance just because I was diagnosed with a mental illness... or three? And that even in the hospital I thought I had met a potential soul mate... but that would be for another post? Well this is that post.
My second visit at ‘Club Medication' and I'm following this blue line down the middle of the hospital hallway. It leads to the smoke ‘garden'. That's where all the chain smokers hang out. I never smoked until I got there but the cute guy from A3 lights up every two hours. So I won't see him otherwise.
So I'm in the ‘garden' - yeah right and sitting in my blue drawstring hospital pants on one of those flimsy white plastic chairs; one leg is shorter than the others, so I'm wobbling away trying to find my balance (on this chair) and at the same time I'm looking at Nick. That's his name, Nick, the cute guy from ‘A3' with dirty blonde hair and pulsing biceps who undoubtedly has a girlfriend. Anyway I'm looking at Nick smoking, and I ask him for a light.
I know his name because we're all assigned orderlies for the day and it's posted on a white board with our names listed under them. Wednesdays I'm with Liam. So is Nick. Isn't that cute we're a couple without even trying. This is my logic.
Anyway...I'm sitting there, smoking like I'd really never done before. And then out of Nick's mouth comes poetry. Now I doubt it was really all that good. We all think we're poets when we're in there, suffering for our art or some embarrassing crap like that. But he says these words that make me think of tangerines and the smell of sandalwood. It reminds of the purple sunsets I saw in India on the banks of the Ganges River. And he says these things and I just laugh like a lunatic. NO. I mean really like a lunatic and he looks at me like I'm crazy or something ‘cause it wasn't supposed to be funny. And he just gets up and walks away. And I'm left there with my burning butt of a cigarette - feeling like an idiot thinking about the tie-dyed sunsets of India. And I realize this is going to be a harder than I thought. To be continued...
Tune in for the second post of ‘Dating in the Midst of Mental Illness' in a couple days...
© 2009 Victoria Maxwell
