today my psychiatrist is forty minutes late. i am anxious and ready and waiting for her, damn it. i miss seeing her. in her office we exchange pleasantries and witticism. i wait for her million dollar question. i say what i cannot suppress, “ahhhh, i am fu-- king alive.”
9 years and she is never shocked by my candor. my cursing sets off the tone for my session. i am enthusiastic and our conversation reflects my pace. her eyes bright and smile wide explain with a sense of satisfaction, “it almost looks like hypomania” (a mild form of mania, marked by elation and hyperactivity). not surprised, i am calm with nuances, eager and relieved. during my appointment there is laughing and swearing and affect. it is me. medication, no changes and i beg God for this fitness. driving home, the beat is hard and the volume loud. i am scribbling notes and pass at 90. i move fast and feel. the intensity of my senses have returned in this hypomania. asleep when there is no “life” the senses wake when i come alive.
swearing, it is common to have a loss of censorship in speech and i see how i am elevated by mood. while there are those who swear and scream to violence, others create words as if an art form. i believe such is mine. cursing with the right intonation brings the cutting edge expression of ones self to others. Author Mark Twain is quoted in his book “Biography,” “under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances; profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.”
some say swearing corrupts language, others that it reduces physical pain. not in front of children, no repressed emotion for me, for as long as i am driven i will remain.
