A little bit more about that word... Bipolar.

I sit here tonight, 2 a.m., wishing I could fall to sleep. I fear it will escape me once again and the prospect is both pleasing and tiring to me. Insomnia is no stranger to me. I have know it well for 20+ years. Why I suffer is perhaps for another write. Tonight it is because my mind is too busy pondering things. I am a writer. It is what I do, what I love... my passion. With that being said, I, like a million other writers want to be the best at what I do. I want my readers to always want more of me. What writer doesn't?
But tonight, I don't write about being a writer. I write about the one that writes and carries with him a little more baggage. With my desires and fears of writing, I carry the tag of a Bipolar. You know, that guy that starts 20 projects, but not because he has so much time that he needs 20 projects going. He starts 20 because he doesn't sometimes finish the others. That would be me. I consider it one of my greatest accomplishments that I have finished so many stories and even have several novels published.
Perhaps you live with it, know someone or... maybe you even are someone that shares this disorder with me. Maybe you know the guy that started 20 projects and 19 of them sit unfinished, scattered from one end of his home to another. Maybe I can shed a bit of light on this for you. It isn't that we didn't intend on finishing them. It isn't that we don't care if we do or don't. But with completion comes the opportunity to be judged. The chance to have someone evaluate what we have done and say "wow, it's great" or "man, you suck." Even simpler, kinder words meant only to help or point out a tiny flaw can send me into a LOW that will take weeks, maybe longer to come out of. Something innocently said that caused me to think on it, much longer than someone else would. Too long some would say.
I saw words tonight that were I suppose meant only to offer an idea to change something. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I worked it through my head for hours and simply could not shake it. Tears fell like someone had died. The sheer realization of how thinly clad my heart was made me sit and wonder how it is I even function some days. The fear of failing at anything isn't always the failure part. It is the embarrassment that hits my system so hard that I can barely think. Even as i sit and write this, I wonder if I should. Do I paint myself a freak or whiner or do I open eyes for others to see that they are not the only one in the world that does these things, feels this way?
Thinking that I may fail at something that I love or want so badly leaves me questioning everything around me. Things I know to be good for me and yet so afraid I will not be able to give it my all leaves me not following through at all.The things I have lost because I was so busy thinking I would fail that I didn't take the time to step up are too many to count. I only know that I lost them because of my fear of failing. Fear of disappointing someone. This is my life, the way I live each and every moment. This LOW is nothing new to me, but each time, I wonder where it will take me this time. Braver in leaving than in staying.
Tonight , I hurt inside. Tonight or is it this morning... it all runs together for me, I will sit up all night and think on one simple thing that my heart feels. Tonight I will be alone and I must ponder that too. Morning will be here before I know it...