I ate some popcorn shrimp today.

No big deal to most of you but to someone who's been a vegetarian for the better part of my life, this is wild wild behavior. Also, for a Jew--I ate trayfe. I ingested a forbidden crawling thing and violated a commandment.

Shrimp tasted damn good too.  There. That was my act of defiance. Some people go on a bender with tequila. I eat shrimp. *twirls finger*  Yey me.

Seriously, I want another brain. I don't want to be the person who has a moral struggle over eating popcorn shrimp and sits there with my brain overloading before my mouth is even full. I don't want to be bipolar and poetic and whatnot, fretting a lifetime away making art that plenty people appreciate (there are plenty other bipolar and poetic people out there who get it, thank G-D) when I could be passing legislation instead of writing fanfic pr0ns. I was supposed to be a neurosurgeon. Smart little girls grow up to be doctors. Somewhere along the road I wasn't smart anymore--my brain messed up.

I want to appreciate what it is that I do, the differences I make on a tiny scale--someone has to wipe the baby's butt and sing the lullabye. But so much of my life has been pain, pain, pain. I see people walking around and kids playing and eating popcorn shrimp without a care and I'm so tired being me.

Sophie's not doing well at all. Last night she saw an orange tiger. It's funny--I once dated a guy, lovely Iranian Jewish guy with tons of money and talent and good looks and he was bipolar and never took his meds and one night he saw a tiger and t thought, nope can't marry this one--I don't want to risk this disease in my children. Woah, the irony. i knew I was a major fucked up poet depressive then but I didn't know I was bipolar.

Tonight Sophie had an episode that was as bad as anything before the medication and she screamed "I'm scared, I'm scared, I'm scared" over and over for what seemed like a half hour but was maybe only minutes. She said the chicken pox was coming to get her and no spirits could protect her. Then she went to YouTube and played a Taylor Swift song over and over until she calmed down. I just sat in the rocking chair and watched, hot tears running down my face, while she sang along, over and over:

Romeo save me, they try to tell me how to feel
This love is difficult, but it's real, Don't be afraid
We'll make it out of this mess
It's a love story baby just say yes, oh........

She's only seven. If I make it through this, then there's puberty, dear G-d.

Max is taking it all so hard--he thinks his current meds aren't working and I think he's just reacting appropriately to what is a very painful family situation.  Asher is so brave. Half the time it's "Sophie shut up, you're talking nonsense again" and the other time it's "Are you feeling better now Sophie?"

People live through stuff like this. There are parents whose children have worse illnesses, parents who children are dying, can't talk or show emotion and Sophie is beautiful and capable of so much love. She's a blessing. It's just murder to see her in pain. I don't know how I'm doing it or if I can do it for much longer. I don't think I'm that strong, really. There's just nothing else to do but get through.