This Was There

I have bipolar disorder and I know some people will read that and think that explains it. Maybe. I've thought about it seriously. But I've had this disorder for twenty years and I know what my episodes feel like, and I was stable and medicated and in a good period, and this was not that. I became aware of a warmth that wasn't temperature. More like being regarded warmly by something I couldn't see or locate. It didn't ask anything. Didn't tell me anything. Just regarded me. For a few minutes, sitting by the lake at Washington Park on a Thursday afternoon. I told my psychiatrist. She said it sounded like a positive dissociative experience linked to environment and improved affect. That might be right. I'm not qualified to say it isn't. But I've been in this disorder for twenty years and I know the difference between something my brain made and something that was there. This was there and it noticed me and I'm glad I finally found somewhere to say that.