The Prettiest Petite Piñata Lady Ever and her Managed Manic Magnificence

Yesterday I stopped in at the Brain Injury Alliance to say high and see if there is anything I can get involved with there. I am needing to find a place, figure out how to fit into society once again. While there I met the prettiest petit piñata lady ever. I can not even begin to express how much I loved her. She was absolutely bursting with so much energy and so much of what I know so well but keep contained. She says she doesn't open up like that to people, that people do with her but she doesn't like that with them. She claims she needs to. I agree with that but I also am not sure that I should because she and I both know what comes along with that.
It's why we don't embrace our crazy so openly.
She was like manic me if I were on steroids and Ritalin at the same time and yet, she was managing, working and functioning.
Managed Manic Magnificence.
She was like a the live version of so many intensities shared on this blog, the stuff that I only share here and mostly keep restrained in the "real world."
I loved how she related to the spirituality and the way she thought in rhymes at times. I loved that she researches and understands "coming out of isolation." I love that she knows what it is like to be tough and yet not seen and not heard. Actually I don't love that, I wish she did not have that pain and the problems that come along with it. I wish I could take it from her and so many other tragedies she has had to endure, and the thing is she relates to that as well.
She is not me but she understands things about me and I understand things about her that very few do.
She and I, we are valuable in our communities and we are especially valuable in the TBI and bipolar communities. We could help the people who have abused us in the systems that are supposed to help us. We deserve to be heard and listened to, we deserve to be treated with respect and we deserve fair treatment.
She knows there are more out there like us and I hope I can help find them and help them have a voice too. We have taken on burdens and helped people be strong when we were breaking or broken our selves and far too often we were overlooked and/or slandered, talked down to, sacrificed or undermined because we were nice and tough but also independent and even selfless.
I take care of myself by taking care of others and I will keep doing that, only now, I'm also going to take care of others by taking care of and standing up for myself.
I remember asking, in my breaking and in my exiling: "Why me? Why now?"
Because I am stronger than I knew and I am needed and I have done a damn good job of managing and adapting and being a good person despite my "mental illness" and TBI.
Maybe I won't get resolve where or how I would like, but I may just be developing resolve.
And somehow I am letting go by holding on and I can feel things letting go as I reach out and keep trying.
True colors will come out and all that needs to be brought to light will be.
I am going to be okay.

This is what came out today as I reflected on Managed Manic Magnificence and the pains that come along with living and loving. I felt the pains of my lovely new friend and older friends. I felt the weight of the world as I painted. I wondered how and why we can all keep living with so much pain and so much heartache. A few tears fell as I painted, but ultimately, I feel like something beautiful came out of it and I love it. It may be my favorite painting yet.

Tiny victories
and
Keep Fighting
Update: My pretty piñata friend has read this and I love that she needed time to process it and me also, it tells me she is holding onto rational and I know that I can trust her. She told me she wants her name on here and I am flattered that she not only will allow it but requested it. The only problem I have is I don't know how to write her name in now without changing the integrity of my in the moment writing. So I decided to attach it here and in the future I will call her by name... maybe, -well, only if I don't think what I am saying could come back to bite her.- Her name is Renee Casati and she is truly a beautiful person. It is so nice to be seen and nice to be heard and nice to know I am not alone.