Nature Abhors A Vacuum (And Why Bi Polar People Shouldn’t Try To Fill It.)

Inviting, isn’t it?

Almost an irresistible pull to go into the hole, can’t you feel yourself being puulllllleeeeddddd in?

Just sit back and stare at it for a few moments, the kind of stare where your eyes go out of focus and you become one with that vacuum. You want to run and jump through, or fill it up so you are not yanked through to your death like the Black Hole in the Cosmos.

Can you sit quietly and just look at it passively and let it be what it is and know that you are better off, more at peace, you will live life with a greater sense of spaciousness and calm than you ever have if you stay this side of the hole? It is really a  beautiful place to be. It is the Zen lesson of form and emptiness. It will serve you well to learn this lesson and stay out of it.

Now let me tell you that I’m not sure a single bi polar person wouldn’t go diving through that hole at top speed, or would throw things at it until, like closing the opening of a cave with big rocks, you couldn’t see it anymore, not a tiny crack still open.

Alright, I won’t speak for everyone in the world who is  bi polar but I can gosh darned tell you it is true of me.

This is such an embarrassing post to write.

(Shrugging shoulders.)

Once again I am doing it because if there is one other BP person out there who has trouble with this (Or not BP?) maybe you can be helped by this by at least noticing that it is, as people say these days, a thing.

This was the topic of yesterdays Free “Gift Box” poster. I create these and put them out into the Universe so that everyone can use them in any way they wish. They can copy, share, distribute, enjoy, etc. without worry of copyright infringement. They are my heart’s gift to the world and there are a lot of them now. Simply click on the link at the top of this page and download as many as you’d like. Here is the one I sent out last night…

You see I am rattling around in this place of back home after the fire and what in the world am I supposed to do now in this place that is very nice but really doesn’t look like my house and how am I supposed to live in it?, and I have filled out forms for disability but don’t know what is going to happen and how soon, and don’t have hardly any money left and am so terrified I feel like I might go down like the Titanic, and I might jump off the roof but there are the pugs to feed (They are solely responsible for me not jumping off the roof on a regular basis.) and so much uncertainty that that GREAT BIG GIANT HOLE seems to grow larger by the day. So what to do, oh what to do?

Well of course I did what I always do. I come up with some grand scheme or idea that I am sure will bring in LOTS (I have often SPENT way too much money creating these grand schemes, at least I didn’t this time.) of money so I don’t have to be afraid, give me something to do, have purpose and meaning in the world, blah blah blah and boy oh boy did I run with it. I have a desk of things piled up so high I can’t see over or around it and I am scared to death what will happen to me if I don’t deal with it but did I deal with any of it yesterday? Why no of course, I went wild all day creating a new web page for my grand money making scheme, and proud to pieces of myself I sent it out all over FB and Twitter, and if I had been a going out sort of person would probably have run to some copy place and had thousands of fliers made up to distribute all across the land. Being agoraphobic isn’t all bad.

I was going to save the world, or every lonely suffering person in it, by doing something I used to do. Not quite mentoring which I have done successfully but get all jangly and nervous if I have to try now, I created a page for…

See, I can create fabulous graphics, one of my favorite things to do, and I created a bang up web page (another favorite thing to do) and I got it out all over everywhere (having built up such a head of steam that I could outrun a locomotive) and then… and then… a few people made comments, nice ones, supportive ones, very likely seeing me about to spin off the planet and knowing I was getting myself in trouble because of the terrible shape I’ve been in since the fire. I have been crippled emotionally, moreso than normal which is bad enough, and I created all manner of things that I wasn’t able to carry through. This new piece of work wasn’t out on the internet an hour when I removed it in a frantic state from all pages I had put it up on, unpublished the webpage, and fell back in my chair panting with relief.

This is how it almost always goes.

And wow, this is so much more embarrassing than I’d imagined at the outset. (Hiding under a pile of pugs.)

And if you don’t believe I do it looks like this (Except that all 4 were on top of me, I just couldn’t fit them all in the picture)…

So here I am, the pile of stuff is still here on my desk. My kitchen is such a disaster I keep going in there, taking a look at it, sighing and leaving again. So much more fun to dawdle around on Pinterest. And forget my laundry room. Anyone who still needs a haunted house for Halloween can use it. Any do gooder out there who wants to save the world can start with my kitchen and laundry room. (Desperate, I have no shame.)

All of this by means of saying, as I wrote on the poster, “Nature abhors a vacuum but you don’t have to fill it.” I know most people don’t go to the extremes I do but I do know that it is a thing for people so I thought I might share. Of course reading my story very likely makes you feel so much better about your own forays into the vacuum, and you’re welcome. Just watch out for the Black Holes, and go eat a popsicle or something. Much safer.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.