How I Learned to Love Mondays and Rain
While growing up,
I listened to Karen Carpenter songs.
I love her.
I miss her.
Don’t we all?
A few of her songs
defined my whole life.
This included
the song “Rainy Days and Mondays Always Get Me Down.”
As Mondays go,
I dreaded
they’re forthcoming.
Laughing at myself
knowing they’re inevitable.
How silly of me.
As rain goes,
it served as a disappointment
that stopped
all the good in life.
It ruined everything.
Barbeques,
outdoor weddings,
slippery slopes
to trips to the mall.
Rain became
the trope of my story.
I filed my life
under D for Dismal.
Especially after
I was served a diagnosis
for severe Bipolar disorder.
I thought BPD
was for others,
and not for me.
I looked down
my nose at it.
Until I found myself
simply looking down.
If I didn’t know better,
which I didn’t,
I would have known
how BPD could
contribute to
the positive stuff
in my life,
creating a new life for me
to become a better
version of myself.
I could learn to love
a better version
of myself?
Right?
You see there is
the “before me”,
then there is the “after me”.
Without BPD,
I couldn’t write
my memoirs,
Or, in fact, this poem.
I wouldn’t have trusted
my ability to re-learn
to love myself or others.
Bipolar Disorder is
only a chapter of my life.
I trust God
for a different trope
of my story.
Mondays are
an opportunity to start
a brand new week
with a positive outlook.
Rainy days are simply little blessings
pouring down,
nourishing creation.
Now, I listen to
Karen Carpenter songs
as a means to
nostalgia of the what used to
define my life
and what I’ve learned from life
on its own terms.
Now, I make Karen Carpenter’s song
“On Top of the World” as part of
my song repertoire.
It defines my “after me.”
Don’t get me wrong,
I still get my bouts with Bipolar,
but now I cope with skills
not mechanisms, as they were.
I love the true me. The “after me.”
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