heart coffee

hello my fellow j-landers   today i had lunch with M...and before i go any further i will divulge her name   i'm finally ok about telling you  i've only been holding back because sometimes M, Maggie, reads this journal   well i no longer feel the need to hold back her name   now you know it  it's Maggie   this is the dear friend of mine whom i have a crush on...so anyways we had lunch today at Pei Wei   then we stepped next door for coffee to warm up   it's cold today and even a few snow flurries were fallin'   so anyways, i get my latte and take the top off   Maggie noticed a heart shaped in the milk on top   a good sign she says  i say of course i have my girlfriend with me   we both laughed but it made my day   i've been struggling with the 501 Blues for the past 3 weeks a lot   today is another one of those days   and over lunch i discussed a few details of this illness with Maggie    i hardly ever talk about the illness and as a start i am going to share with you my friends what the diagnosis, prognosis, etc related to the illness    i have schizoaffective disorder   this diagnosis according to my doc is because i have symptoms of schizophrenia and symptoms of bipolar   the medication takes care of the schizo part, but despite medications for the bipolar part, i still experience mood swings often   highs, lows, extremes and in between    it's a royal pain in the ass often    the one thing i realized last nite was that my number JOB is to manage this illness   sometimes i still wish i didn't have it ..btw, it's caused by a chemical imbalance in my brain   those neurons and electrons or whatever you call them don't act right...anyways, i call this illness the 501 Blues because it's the depression part that gets to me and the Levi's 501 Blues song gives me a light heart perspective to deal with this  it helps takes the HEAVYness out of it, or at least some of it    today after lunch with Maggie and talkin' to my therapist, i feel i've come to a different stage in relating to this illness   maybe it is time to talk about it more to other people   tell 'em what it really is    this journal entry is the first step in that direction   i just want to live as much of a "normal" life as possible i try to ignore this thing  but it always reminds me it's still there    no matter what, i get thru somehow, someway   it isn't easy sometimes, but Life goes on....