Swelltide.

I am trying not to think of everything at once. My mind the last couple of days has been wondering, blundering-- everywhere and nowhere. It happens when I'm under stress. All things seem equally poignant, equally important and I can't then concentrate on any one thing. Makes school difficult. Studying difficult. Makes small talk difficult.

Test tomorrow, and a test next week. Spent a few days in Florida with the girlfriend's family, which was amazing. Went to the beach, had a cookout. Met some of her family for the first time. But, I didn't really do any school work when I was down there. Now, I am playing catch-up, again.

Money issues, again. As in, I have none. Waiting on financial aide which won't come for a week or two (maybe longer). I know that there is no point in worrying about it. But, I do. How can I not? I haven't really been working and I don't have much interest in this job anymore anyway. I want to get away from the people there, who aren't good for me. The schedule, which isn't good for me. The environment. The dead-end. Which is why I started school back in the first place. So, I haven't been going out of my way to make myself available for work. And now, I have no money.

I need a new job. I need my degree already. I need insurance so I can get back on the medication. Go to a therapist. I need for real life to start.

Swelltide.

My last week or so has been pretty rough. It started last Thursday (or Tuesday? I can't remember). Woke up late for a job, which I found out later was scheduled even earlier in the morning and I didn't get the voice message about it. This job was almost two hours away from my house, which I was pretty angry about in the first place. Why me, the guy who is in school and is spending every waking moment studying and doing homework? Why me, the guy who has bent over backwards to make himself available on those days he isn't going to school? When I found out the job was scheduled even earlier, I got even more upset. Anyway, I missed the job after driving all the way out there, then had to make the hour drive to Richmond from it. Stewing the whole time.

On the way to the job, I hit a dog on the main road. I stopped and started to run to run back to it. I could see its legs up in the air and I have this vision of the dog convulsing, foaming at the mouth or bleeding from a gaping wound. I couldn't do it. I stood there thinking of what to do, saw a car coming and just left. I feel terrible for it. I know some people think nothing of killing an animal that walks out in front of their car. Not me. Thinking about it makes me a little queasy. Mad at myself. Guilty because I didn't do everything I could, and trying to justify that rather pathetically by telling myself that I was already running late.

Then the last week of school. Spending ten hours one day studying chemistry that I still don't understand. A whole day on a lab report, and then trying to catch up in everything else. I am scared that this is going to be, yet again, another semester where I fall behind because I am not getting things as quickly as I should. I got an email tonight that my lab report contained a few errors. Sunday, I spent the better part of eight hours doing math homework and algebra review.

I hope it gets better. I cannot, and never have allowed myself to drop a class. Surely my grade suffers for it but I don't need to delay graduation any longer than I already have. I am thirty. Thirty! The age when many are reaching their strides, creating careers. Here I am starting over.

I was reading this article about a L.A. musician. What life was like for him prior to his diagnosis of bipolar... It is equally heartening that there are influential people out there who live with it and do well, and disheartening what even these 'successful' people  put up with-- and put themselves through.  I am desperate at times for people around me to understand what it is really like. Nope, I am not touring all the time and dealing with serious substance abuse-- but the mania is the same. The depression is the same. It helps me, reading about such people, to not feel so isolated or alone.