Jan 15 2009
Being Bipolar: My life is not a dash
I often get things stuck in my head and dwell on it for days or even weeks. Since my cousin’s funeral, I have certainly had something stuck in my head and it unnerves me.
The preacher who performed the service spoke for over 15 minutes about the dates on a tombstone. He talked about the birth date and death date being separated by a dash. He said, “This dash represents your life. Where are you in your dash?” Frankly, I refuse to envision my life as a mere dash. To view one’s life as an insignificant flash in the grand scheme of things makes it all seem meaningless. My life is much more than just a dash.
Don’t get me wrong. I understand what he was trying to say. I struggle to make it day to day and I am not willing to think of my life as a speck in all of existence. I just can’t do it. How could I tell myself that tomorrow will be meaningful if I do? How could I convince myself that there are days worth waiting for? I don’t subscribe to his belief. My life is not a dash. It’s a novel that has yet to be written, a movie not quite half way through, or a song that has only begun to play.
Life is so much more than your dash, my friend. My life will surpass this and so much more. I can guarantee that at the end of my days, there will be no dash on my tombstone. There will be a wide-open space between my dates, and that open space will represent how I viewed my life – limitless and full of possibilities.
AMEN! I don’t like the whole idea of a dash representing your life…it sounds so morbid to me.
Nicely done! I agree. Oh btw, I have something special for you…
I agree with you as well. I have this friend, one who seems to be far too caught up in being a dash–”Why do anything? It’s not going to make a difference.” Dashes don’t look for ripples; they’re just ink on the page.
If I must be small in a large world, and there’s far too much evidence of that for me to avoid it, I would rather think of myself as the butterfly flapping its wings in China. I do something–then there’s a change in someone else’s routine because of it, which in turn goes on and affects someone else, which…. well, you get the idea. Chaos theory makes an interesting motivator, doesn’t it?