I'm Scared Shitless When a Plan Comes Together

Today was a good day in terms of the book, despite writing a preface that came off like something Marianne Williamson would use to wipe her butt. But getting wrong can carry you a long step toward getting it right, and the mishap ended up greatly illuminating the book’s content and structure, among other things. It also made me realize that, taken on the whole, I actually knew what I was doing. And that serendipity had been strongly asserting itself. For the first time I have a glimmering that I can actually pull this thing off. As someone with bipolar disorder, the thought was both liberating and terrifying.

On “The A-Team” Hannibal Smith invariably grins at some point in the show, cigar clinched in his teeth at a jaunty angle, and declaims, “I love it when a plan comes together.” But an evolving hypomanic episode brings about an irresistible sense that the whole universe is coming together, and a giant sense of possibility emerges that some window of opportunity has come about—but also the sense that the window will close unless you drop everything to dive through it.

Fortunately I felt none of those things today. And when your strongest impulse is merely to crack open a pale ale, and when you’re so tired you have trouble even staying awake, it’s a pretty clear indication that you’re safe.