I have these days, and I know I’m not the only one.  I have these humiliating crying spells, and I thought they were coming from nowhere.  I feel strange and out of place, like I don’t belong, or like I don’t know myself anymore.  That’s pretty close.  I get fleeting memories of this hippie kid with hair wraps and a purple serape.  He was a bit impulsive irresponsible and self destructive, but I miss him all the same.  He was happy and people enjoyed being around him.  During the day he was a rough framer and grunt for a spec house operation in Mill Valley Ca.  In the afternoon and evening he was a street musician on acid.  He was the product of irresponsible parents, and his own irresponsibility.  Delayed gratification was a word unknown to him. He wasn’t a drunk druggy, he was a self medicator.  In his defense, he was generouse, he never thought twice about sharing everything he had.

He had been diagnosed bi-polar in 84.  He underwent a "chemical lobotomy" with meloril, and elivil for about a month.  Then everything turned upside down and inside out , and he set out hitch hiking and train riding with no specific destination in mind.  He ended up playing guitar on street corners in cities like, Los Angeles, San /Francisco, Denver, and Seattle.  He called himself  "functionally Homeless", that is, he managed to hustle up enough money to stay clean, fed, and drunk. 

To  make a long story short, he was on his way down until he wound up in Bellingham Wa, preaching chaos .,and obstructing traffic! After dying twice and being taken to the local hospital, and rehab centers several times he walked into a free clinic at his wits end, screaming,  "Please Help Me"  It was 2002 .  That’s when he began to become me. It took three months for them to prescribe the right "head med cocktail" and then five years of adjustments and two trips to the psyche ward to get a working combination.  Sometimes it hurts to realize that this is as "normal" as I’m ever going to be.  -and I’ve suddenly come to the realization that I miss that hippie kid.  I had to let go of myself and become someone else.  I’m grateful that I did,because that hippie kid would have wound up dead for good.

I just wake up somedays wondering who I really am.