In between the useful and the unused

That's where I am. Sitting at my desk pretending to be a diligent little math boy with his pencil and his pensive mind, scribbling in his head before scribbling on the paper, I pretend to be the fully self-trained, self-motivated scholar who knows what he's doing. Useful.

The thoughts stop occasionally, like they did just now, and they sit and rest, bubbling around in my head. What has gone by this week and how can I apply it? Then again, unapplied, what is the pure essence of these thoughts?

I've just spent the last 4 days with my life 50% filled up by the crisis that my friend is going through. Given the wrong diagnosis, she's been on antidepressants since the age of 13 when really the problem was that she's bipolar. But they found that one out just a little too late. The latest antidepressant and consequent necessary withdrawal have sent her into wild mood swings, driving her from maniacal, unfocused highs to hysterical, suicidal lows. Her mind 100% controlled by the medicine. I think what I did to help her saved her life. I wouldn't have done otherwise, however. Who would've acted differently if they were me? Who would've?

Details can be spelled out later and in other venues, but she's in a psychiatric facility now. However, I'm not the only reason she's alive and well & where she needs to be now. She also is. This can't be ignored. On Friday when none of her friends were around campus the medicine drove her into a low deeper than any before, and she started drinking, and saw the pills on her cabinet, and thought that if she just took all of them this would be over real fast. You know how she convinced herself otherwise? She reasoned out of it with her knowledge taken from her classes as a psychology major.

Maybe some things aren't so useless (as reputed) after all. Only unused.

Epic story short this has given me more than a bit of perspective about life. And my future. And her dad's a math man who got a Ph.D at Brandeis with a thesis advisor from MIT but who's currently unemployed. You know why? Because he couldn't teach. I can... and he even still studies every day, his wife doing the work that keeps the family going. Reminds me of a good Murakami novel. No, two. Norwegian Wood and Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

I think my heart can rest easy. But my mind won't. I know she might be in that room, screaming right now, another night of 5 hours or less (or none) of sleep... like k-os repeats in that song about "I can't really make you love me," I'm haunted.

Why?

I saw

When I was in Vancouver, on the SkyTrain, I saw a guy who looked like he might be really ugly. His clothes were a mess from what I saw outta the corner of my eye, and he might be homeless I thought. Well, bad look. I looked again and saw that he was normal. Except his face looked really emaciated. And it was him that the alcohol breath was coming from. But holy shit. He should've been so beautiful. He was one of the best-looking guys I had seen the whole trip I was there. Or at least he should've been. The alcohol and the drugs killed that. Why is that? Why the fuck?

I identify with him. When I look in the mirror after I have one of those sleepless, depressed nights after I get rejected or something, that's me. The drug addict. Addicted to the lack-of-sleep high soothing my sorrows. Refusing all other cures. Knowing that nobody would ever look at me if they knew what kind of sorry state I fall into when my emotions get destroyed.

And yet I told myself (jubilant that day. I was in Vancouver after all!!) that I shouldn't look back at him - encourage him to get over his problems, rather than looking at him as though maybe I cared. For him.

It doesn't make sense.