I felt a little pressure before performance number 3.
I mean, it’s a little silly, I guess. But, in the half marathons project, the 3rd one was the one I did on crutches.
In the volunteer activities, it was the amazing Do Good Bus, which then came around full circle when I got to volunteer in the space we renovated.
(Not to mention, 3 is my lucky number (even though that’s also silly).) So, there was pressure since it seems like the 3rd one is supposed to be good.
Part of me wanted to wait until I thought I had something awesome. But I knew I couldn’t do that as time goes too quickly. Also, when I planned the 3rd thing of the other projects, I didn’t have grand ideas. The things just turned out to be awesome.
I found out sometime in the morning or the night before that I was gonna have a pretty light night at work. So, I decided I’d dress ready to perform and write a little poem. If I got out in time, awesome. I’d be prepared.
Recently, one of the things I’ve been interested in exploring and writing a narrative about is a character having a relationship with a bipolar person – what it’s like to be part caretaker, and how that affects the relationship (both him and her). I certainly don’t want her to be put upon and him a villain or anything.
And that was something I struggled a bit with as I wrote the poem. I wanted to show the positive side too. It was also a little hard, because there is so much you could talk about and so many directions in which you could go.
You could talk about who are we really? And if what she’s really attracted to is this manic, exciting side – does she kind of love the disease (or what this disease does to this man)? Or does she love the man underneath? But who is the man underneath? I know no one can be defined by an illness. But if your illness seriously affects your personality, then is it part of you?
I just feel like there are all these questions kind of like who are we (not to get too spacey about it or anything).
Ultimately, to try to keep it within two minutes (and to just finish something in the hour or two I had in the morning), I just focused on her inner struggle of if she should really stay.
And that’s where I’ll pick up next time.