to remind myself (humor is my best friend)

So, I'll be turning 50 on October 16th. I'm going to be a very young, vibrant 50. Having spent half my life in psychosis and looking like I'm in my thirties anyway, I feel I owe it to myself.

I also owe myself a "mini" mid-life crisis; just a little one. Since I've had enough drama in my head to last 5 lifetimes, this is all I want. I know who I am.

I told my father who thinks that red hair (my "mini" mid life indulgence) would not become me this:

• I don't have money to buy a sports car.
• I don't have a husband to leave.
• I don't smoke anymore.
• I don't drink.
• I don't ge high.
• I'm not promiscuous.

hair coloring is about all there is left. So, I'm trading in dark brown for a deep vibrant red. (My stylist, who is more conservative than I said, let's do it in stages). I like to have a sense of humor about my life and my illness. I like to be around people who joke and laugh with me about myself and life as well as their  own.

Like one  of my friends who has known me since before my break, found it very funny that on one hospital stay, I told her that they refused to let us watch "One flew over the cuckoo's nest" She always remembers this and we laugh. She is the first one to laugh with me about my condition. But then, we always had the same sense of humor, that's why we've been friends more than thirty years.

I enlisted my father to drive the "getaway car", when on one hospital stay I decided to break out. (I was extremely manic and they couldn't seem to get it under control.). I told my father that they had released me and where to pick me up. But, my father, being the astute gentleman that he is, checked with the hospital first. They said I was over an hour due to be back in the "ward."

This was when they still gave "priveleges" to go off the ward by yourself. You could check your self out for an hour at a time.

My father told them I was in the gift shop. They sent the "white coats" to come and get me. for the rest of my stay I had someone trailing me.

My father never let's me forget this and when I was writing my memoir he said, "Jacques, are you going to tell them about the getaway car story?" We still laugh about it.

I won't bore you with any more of my stories, but you get the gest. Whenever I'm really down on this disease I try to think on some of the things that made me laugh.