Hypomania: A day in the life

Only two hours of slumber and yet the light shines brighter today, the colours more vibrant, the world clear as though a fog has lifted and the windows of my soul polished clean, shiny and new. In the background the music plays, the rhythm picks up and my mind dances in time to the beat. 

I venture out of the house into the sunshine awakened with possibilities, after depositing the offspring at the school bus

I find myself flying down the road, sunroof open, music up; tied down only by my bank balance and the vague recollection of responsibilities.

Stopping at the petrol station I buy a large can of Red Bull and pop a couple of Sudafed and some codeine tablets because I am already flying high and I want to fly higher or at least not come down any time soon. Today the world is mine.

Suddenly it occurs to me that I still haven’t gotten my semi colon tattoo. Immediately pulling off to the side of the road I call the tattoo parlour but they have no appointments left today. Damn. I will have to call back. Catching my reflection in the rear view mirror as I place the call I can’t help but wonder what I would look like with black hair instead of blonde, yes jet black with royal blue tips, foils or wedges. A change is as good as a holiday.

Words spill from my mouth, laughter, joyousness as light gleams from my blue eyes. Confidence at an all-time high, the trolley collection man outside the grocery store directly passes me a shopping trolley and in a thick African accent says “You have such a lovely face”, he stumbles his words and grins sheepishly and I thank him, smiling at the compliment without even turning it around in my mind to mean the million negative stories it usually would.

My trolley is now full, over flowing in fact, full of food, of this and of that. Everything in the shop is necessary or could definitely be useful one day and those specials are too good to pass up. 

The shopping centre is next to the airport and as I pack the groceries into my car I debate flying somewhere on a whim. How fun would it be to simply catch the next flight going to anywhere? I decide that I'd better not, the ice cream would melt.

I detour past work on the way home to say hi and accidently spend an hour chatting and $100 on fish and aquarium plants while my frozen goods quietly melt in the boot of my car. I will just slip them into my fish tank, hubby will never notice! 

I drive the 100km back to my little farm house, singing “I’m an Albatraoz” and “Titanium” at the top of my lungs with the windows down getting frustrated that there are cars on the road that want to drive at the speed limit. 100km per hour feels ridiculously slow today.

Arriving home, I dance around the house unpacking the shopping, introducing my fish, scrolling through twitter, googling images of black and blue hair and emailing letters to friends I haven’t spoken to in ages telling them how special they are to me. 

Mum rings and tells me how happy and chatty I sound and how glad she is I stopped taking “that horrible medication” as it made me so dull. Secretly fearing that I probably need to start taking it again I tell her in no uncertain terms that yes, Lithium is indeed evil and then launch into a paranoid spiel about drug side effects and make her promise that if the hospital ever commits me again and tries to give me ECT that she is to hire a lawyer and prevent it at all costs or kidnap me. 

She agrees wholeheartedly. 

I make cupcakes while on the phone and nearly forget to pick up the children from the school bus. I have an in depth conversation with the bus driver about caring for the elderly before he finally says “I really should get these other kids home” and quickly drives away. 

My 7yr old then has a temper tantrum because Mr11 ‘bagsed the front seat’ and she stands there screaming for 15minutes while I piss myself laughing at the ridiculousness of it all, we finally get home and walk into a house that smells like burning cupcakes. Shit the oven!!

Hubby gets home and asks what I did today so I tell him a watered down version he and proceeds to raise an eyebrow suspiciously and check the bank balance when I tell him I went shopping and got a couple of ‘extras’.

Serving up an oh so healthy meal of hot dogs and chips for the family, I make a gluten free tomato and spinach leaf sandwich for myself jumping up from the table every five minutes to check on the new fish who appeared to be fighting thus accidently giving away to hubby that I bought new fish. 

To calm down I try to go for a run, simultaneously singing Bob Dylan songs and checking twitter but my ankle hurts and it’s too hard to sing while puffing, besides pressing buttons on an iPhone screen while running with sweaty hands is impossible so I slow down to a walk and half listen to a podcast/ half daydream for an hour instead.

I go to bed, watch a movie and have the best sex of my life. Still can’t sleep so I spend several hours on my phone engaged in a bad pun war on Facebook and writing rap song lyrics. Eventually I put dance music on in my headphones and actually fall asleep.  

How was your day?