Fleeting and Transcendent Beauty

One of the better parts of living with bipolar disorder is you grow to expect that eventually the good times will come to an end, and that really helps one cope with the idea of impermanence and that life isn't going to be one long continuous light beer commercial, occasionally you'll have parts where it's much more like a billboard ad for a personal injury attorney, or a stained and blotted newspaper clipping for a full-service massage parlor.

Speaking of, Boston newspapers have the most fascinating advertisements I do believe I've ever seen, but that's something else entirely.

That being said I really do believe that every person is entitled to at least a handful of moments of abject glory, where the Universe falls into alignment and the flux capacitors of fate overload with awesomeness and spell out HELL YEAH with neon-blue electrical arcs. You beat the bully, get the girl, and score the winning, uh, sports point, right as the bell rings, carried off into the summer sunset on the shoulders of your bros and recently converted bros.

Your crippling shyness and social anxiety peel away like a scab in a public swimming pool, your muscles swell, and the veins in your arms pop out with this new, warm sensation of. . . Pride? Yes! You straighten your back and puff out your chest, and walk with a newfound swagger, which causes the people behind you to break out into a spontaneous song and dance number about how awesome the world is now.

Doves descend from the heavens, carrying olive branches and suspending a banner from their beaks that read "THIS DUDE ROCKS" and when you speak, candy falls from your mouth, like some kind of gastro-intestinal pinata. Children adore you. Flowers bloom everywhere you set foot, and needless to say, your soundtrack is bitchin. Like if a bass guitar and a saxophone were to give birth to the love child destined to save the universe, only better. Music so good it would retroactively give sight to both Stevie Wonder AND Ray Charles, who would then immediately commend himself on having the foresight to wear awesome sunglasses in his casket.

You walk through the bad parts of town, and gang leaders rush to have you officiate truces and cut ribbons on parks and schoolyards. Corrupt city executives vow to no longer accept bribes from crooked land developers. Salvador Dali's ghost is tapped to remake the state flag. A child releases a single red balloon. You high-five an amputee and his limbs grow back. A cancer patient smells your hair and finds her tumors vanished. As you stand on your front stoop, digging your keys out of your pockets, ready to burst inside and tell your parents that it's okay, everything's going to be fine, you are devoured by bears, and nobody attends your funeral.



But it was a good few hours, while it lasted.

strange things are happening
every day