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Everybody needs a miracle at some time in their lives and some more than others.

I found a miracle at a state Hospital I went to –I’m finally learning not to put out the names—except for one, Mark S, who knows who he is.  I remember him talking about needing a miracle and I thought that was so silly and strange.

And here I am 36 years later asking for a miracle myself and understanding what it means.

This person was so profoundly intelligent.  I don’t have any words for this.  Just the gesture of gratitude.

We were a couple and I wished at one point that we weren’t having sex.  We were like two small children (except that he was very tall.  And thin.) reaching for something.

I had to end the relationship because there was no future in laying around all day having sex (such as I was able at that time.)  That was after we both got out of the hospital and shared a one bedroom apartment—he stayed in the living room.

But I still loved him.  It was a feeling of completion so sweet.  And then I went off the rails and was back in the hospital and was put on a trial of Tegretol which was new back then—the anti-seizure medicine for mood.

That made me so sick.  It gave me periods of intense gratitude and integration.  But made me so sick.  Also, I want4ed to have children and knew that the Tegretol and the Haldol that I was also taking were very dangerous for a baby and I was getting older…

After that the story of my life was the collision of 2 abortions and random psych meds and multiple hospitalizations in Tampa and elsewhere.  Sheer Hell and some people could see it and others didn’t comment.  Thirty years later I am pulling my life back together.

And cigarettes.

Mark S. knows who he is and could probably take me at anything.  I was dumped from Scrabble by the tech.  He had clever American words and trounced me easily.

I said to Mark as we walked along the edge of the field behind one of the hospital buildings, and some birds were in the air, I commented, “Two big huge fucking crows.”  Mark was under impressed.  “You went to Harvard?”

I was learning language there.  Of the 24 (?) beds on the unit, 5 had a British cultural issue and so did the unit social worker.

All that got crushed by a situation that I fell into there with a female patient who was struggling with her role as President of the unit.  The Program Director was so taken with her and her appreciation of his program that I wound up getting into trouble over her because I was the Harvard asshole.

Some of the men voted on who was the prettiest on the unit and they elected me and I took that for granted.  I was a pretty stupid person.  All the women sailed off into insecurity and resentment and a battle to win against me.

I understood that all of this had to do with Mark S. leaving the hospital.  He had been my life line, if I understand that term, I’m not sure.  The I woke up one moment feeling resolved.  As I was waking up I saw Mark and a “Spanish gentleman” on either side of me.

I got up and showered as usual and then I started to have this sinking feeling.

It turned out that this Texan woman had criticized me in a “note” that she wrote when we were reading the notes in morning meeting and attending to levels and I didn’t know why it affected me so much but I never got over it.

And I am sitting here right here right now saying to myself, at age 61 I am still hanging onto this old shit?  I was only 24 or 25 when that happened.  A bizarre process started that became a disease that got into my core and turned into a disorder of my reflexes to the point that, at 61, I am half crippled with pain in my legs, feet, spine, and neck.

All I ask for now is some peace.

But, I wanted Mark to know that he was special.