When Sister Visits

My sister comes to visit me tomorrow at my home in Florida. I'm excited! I've been cleaning house, washing clothes, cooking some meals, and getting the car she gave me serviced and washed. We'll have fun if I can manage to keep my behavior acceptable to her.

She's a gifted elementary school music teacher and accomplished pianist with a Ph.D. in music, and lives in Maryland in a sturdy brick house on acres of land with her life-time husband. She also lives close to her two talented sons and their talented, exceptional families. She has five grandchildren ranging in age from elementary through high school, some of whom she taught to play the piano, beginning them at early ages. Now they're becoming accomplished musicians on other instruments. One could say my sister has lived a successful life, and I'm immensely proud of her!

I, in contrast to her, am bipolar, childless, thrice-divorced, and live alone in a mobile home (at least until a hurricane or tornado knocks it down) on a Social Security check, Medicare, and food stamps. However, I, too, have been successful--I've successfully remained alive for more than six decades in spite of my efforts to die while still resident in my youthful face and figure. I long-ago outlived that possibility!

I went off my bipolar meds in 2001. It just seemed to be the right thing to do. I believe I'm not in the terrible mental anguish I used to be in before diagnosis and during the 16 years I was on every medication out there to stabilize me. 

In fact, I've been sure that I was somehow miraculously healed of this noxious affliction and that I wake up every day feeling and behaving consistently and predictably. Recently, two of my friends who see me frequently have informed me that I'm wrong. They they never know who I will be from one time to the next.  Some days, one of my friends said, I'm "higher than a kite" and never stop talking. Other days I'm so depressed I "can hardly get a word out." Hmm. Really?  Okay. But I haven't been altogether wrong. I do feel and behave consistently and predictably like myself, from my internal view. But my poor friends!  How can anyone put up with me? 

Well, my sister can't. When I came home from college for visits, all excited to see my sister and mother, and with so much to tell them, I could see them roll their eyes at each other after only two hours of my non-stop talking.

My sister avoided me altogether for many years. Sometimes she'd magically pop back into my life for a month or so in phone conversations, maybe just to see if I'd changed stripes to spots, and then the phone calls would stop and she'd be gone. Perhaps I'd crossed her lines again.  

I lived in the same town as Mother for years, but when my sister came to visit Mother, she was very clear that I was unwelcome to join the visits, and often I didn't know she and her family were in town. Then suddenly, after not seeing her for ten years, her family came to town and wanted to come to the restaurant where I was performing music, to see me and be with me. And they did.

When our mother was dying, my sister flew down to stay at the Hospice House with Mother.  I went into a rant one day about how the doctors in the hospital had killed Mother, and my sister begged me to "take a pill." I believed at the time that she couldn't stand my behavior and wanted me to shut up. I wanted to accommodate her and wondered which pills I had that would transform me into someone she could tolerate. I had only Zanax and Klonopin, and a small dose of either makes me go to sleep. So did my sister just want me to go to bed and sleep the rest of the week? I didn't take a pill or stop talking.

Many of our famous political leaders and activists talked and wrote a lot. John Adams did. It's said he wrote all over the margins of his books as he read them, like I do--a dialogue with the author, of course! It's said Winston Churchill was bipolar and a drinker. And have you read Mark Twain recently? His new autobiography, Volume I, is out. It's 700 pages long, with two more volumes to be published in the next few years! 

When my sister visits, I'm pretty clear on her rules. She will share very few, if any, of her personal thoughts, feelings, or ideas about what she believes or what's going on in her relationships, and she doesn't want to hear mine, either. I'm also not to talk about politics or religion. I think she believes she's a "capitalist," and a Christian, and she doesn't want to hear anything from me, who she believes is an atheist and a "socialist." I would correct her impression and say that I'm comfortable with the mysteries of life without needing to cling to any belief to explain them, and I'm a "populist."

Somehow I can circumvent all of her rules when I shift into what I call my comic strip personality, where every idea has a punchline that makes her laugh. Yep. I know how to make her laugh. We're sisters! We share the same sense of humor. We have the same voices when we talk, many of the same mannerisms in facial expressions, and we can sing together, too--and share our new songs and creative ideas with each other. And she's fun to cook for. She likes my salmon patties. 

I need her to help me organize my projects (four books and another album of original songs) during the five days she's here. And she can help me make decisions about organizing and disposing of my belongings. I'm sure she doesn't want to come in here and try to make decisions about all of my keepsakes when I die.

This is my sister's first visit to Mother's house since I've been living in it. My dark mind believes everyone, human and non human, dies while living in this house, including Mother, her husband, and recently my dog Savannah. When I first moved in here, a neighbor told me in a whisper that this mobile home community is nicknamed "The Lord's Waiting Room." He was right. Handfuls of people residing here die every month.

I want to hang a welcome sign on the entrance door for my sister: "Welcome to the House of Death in The Lord's Waiting Room. Enter at your own risk." I wonder if she shares that part of my sense of humor.

I'm ready to leave this life now, but not until I get my lifetime of creative work out into the world. I'd also like to know what my sister hides from me about herself, and I'd like to be acceptable to her, and even loved by her, for myself, not as someone she has to control in order to be able to tolerate. I believe that I am more than my behavior, more than just a walking poster-adult for bipolar disorder. My wishes all might take longer to fulfill than time I have left on this planet. So be it. For now, my sister and I can share laughter and music. That's more than enough!