Bright Light

Growing up, I wasn't religious. Sure I went to church and very reluctantly took catechism classes on Sunday nights, but I saw it all as one big elaborate story, not as fact. I thought this God character was just another story that everyone else believed in so I should just stay quiet about it so I didn't piss anybody off. 

Somewhere in my twenties I began to consider that maaaaybe God was real. I had done enough stupid shit that it was time to start hedging my bets. 

Then I had my first manic episode. I mean balls to the wall manic, like complete strangers were coming up to me and asking me if I was on drugs because I was so "exuberant," to which I would simply say, "no, I'm high on LIFE!"

But there are quiet moments in mania too, like after you've been awake HIGH ON LIFE!!! for thirty-eight hours without sleep. It was during one of these quiet moments that my usual state of depression (aka what the shrinks call a mixed episode) was beginning to overwhelm me. 

I was sitting in the shower stall with the door slightly open so I could reach my glass of box wine, water pooling on the tile be damned. I sat there for about forty-five minutes letting the water hit me and taking in the wine that was slow-motion ruining my life. I stared at nothing.

Then I looked up through the crack of the open shower door and saw a bright light, an oval shape about four feet tall and suspended a couple feet above the floor. It flashed for only a second.

In that time, all the anxiety, all the rocks in my stomach, disappeared. I felt peace for that split second I saw the bright light.  

Yeah. Now I sure as fuck believe in God. If it came to me and managed to get through all my bullshit and my thick head? I'll double down, thank you very much.