Bipolar Mornings
I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart: I am, I am, I am.
4:10 AM
Something jolts me awake. I do not know the day or the hour. Glancing at my phone I see I dozed off after asking a question of a correspondent—then missed the three hours of reply while she watched films and drank wine. I felt deflated that I'd missed the party, but in hindsight, I probably needed the sleep and she the solitude.
5:00 AM
I’m lying here on the floor of my studio, staring into the dim of night. The only illumination comes from the little LEDs on the hard drives and other electronic doo-dads scattered about—tiny constellations of green, blue, and red blinking into the void. The furniture around me looks ghostly in the low light. My irises are wide open, straining to catch every stray photon and splash it across the rods and cones in the backs of my eyes. A quiet little miracle of biology working hard to define the edges of the world.
Oddly, I feel safe here.
Several months ago, when the panic attacks first started, the floor became my refuge. Curled up beneath the lip of my desk or wedged under the bed frame—any small nook that resembled the shape of safety—I’d stay there until the tears and shuttering stopped, breathing slowed, the thoughts eased. Like a frightened animal. There’s something inherently comforting about being low to the ground, as if no one can see you fall any further.
But this morning is different. I’m not here to hide. This is simply where I landed. There’s a peace to it. She’s in the bedroom, resting as she needs to, and I am here, letting her have the space. I used to think it strange that my grandparents had separate rooms. Now, it seems like a quiet kind of luxury. And yet, somehow—shouldn’t any separation from the person we love most drive us to madness?
Relationships are strange animals. The older I get, the less I seem to understand them. Or maybe it’s just the less I understand myself. I used to believe that with age came clarity. But instead, it feels like watching a beloved painting through fogged glass—I know the general shape, the composition, the colors, but the fine details remain elusive.
My body is tired in the way that isn’t quite pain but more like a low hum of fatigue—an ache without urgency. Meanwhile, my mind is wide awake. There’s a silent, electric storm behind my eyes. Thoughts dart like fireflies through the cracks in my grey matter—fantasy, regret, desire, exploration. All the strange, vibrant things a mind does when left alone with itself, free from screens and speech and obligation.
This must be what it’s like in an isolation tank. The fewer inputs the brain receives, the deeper it goes into its own caverns. Without distraction, without data, without news or deadlines, we simply are. And in that state, sometimes we’re forced to confront how much of us longs to be elsewhere.
Why can’t I just be like Bilbo Baggins in Bag End? Happy with good food and second breakfasts and quiet adventures with a few beloved companions? That’s the thing I long for most, I think—companionship. Not the kind that simply keeps you company, but the kind that gets you. I’m surrounded by good people. They try. And I love them for that. But it feels as though I’m speaking Elvish while everyone else is drawing stick figures in the dirt. It’s not condescension. It’s disconnection.
But enough of that. This train of thought isn’t going anywhere good. Time to get up. Time to move.
6:15 AM – The Playlist Begins
The morning air is cool and thick, and I’m out driving beneath the fading stars. I cue up the playlist she made—yesterday? I lose track of time in the moment. I gave it the title: New Bipolar Disorder. And bipolar is the operative descriptor. A mix of the dramatic and the tender, the unhinged and the sincere. The soundtrack to stochastic mental landscapes.
This playlist is the instability of desire—how love swings between mania and melancholy, enchantment and unraveling. It’s the spinning dial between heartbreak and heat.
Lady Gaga opens the set with Bad Romance. She’s not just singing, she’s declaring. Wanting it all—the pleasure, the pain, the medicine, and the wound. There’s a riotous, unrelenting honesty in it. I roll the windows down and let her voice flood the cabin. I want to rebel, I want to rage against the life. To explode. This song should be played loud. There’s no other way. She oozes. She bleeds emotion.
By the time I pull into the century-old downtown, Mandy Moore is singing Candy. The sky is shifting from deep magenta to pale cerulean, and I pop out to walk the empty city streets for exercise and for clarity. As Moore shifts into high gear, I feel like a high schooler who missed the bus. I’m rushing to get to class before the first bell. My teenage legs are trembling with the effort of speed-walking, fueled by hormones and hope that I might still catch a glimpse of her at her locker.
Then comes No Air by Jordan Sparks and Chris Brown. This is a night-driving song. Midnight city streets, windows down, heart full. Preferably with the pulse of a waterfront nearby—Miami, maybe. Or New York. The harmonies give me goosebumps. A song to make love to.
“Got me out here in the water so deep...”
Johnny Rivers cools things down with Slow Dancing. It’s like a hand pressed gently to my chest, telling me to breathe. His voice sways. My thoughts drift. I’m still wrapped in the spell Gaga cast, but Rivers gives me permission to rest.
Then comes the heartbreak—The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine (Anymore). Frankie Valli, through Marty McFly’s radio. A lament. A truth. We’ve all known it. Hearts melt under the weight of that croon.
I keep finding new corners to turn downtown as the sun finally breaches the rooftops. The shadows flee. The heat rises. Invisible rivers of air begin to move—drying the sweat, rushing down alleys, tugging at shirtsleeves. I imagine stepping into one and letting it carry me away, away, away. Drop me in the sea. Let me ride it back at dusk.
7:00 AM – Sound, Memory, Disruption
But reality snaps back when I turn one corner and the shriek of a concrete saw assaults me. A construction crew is tearing up the sidewalk. It sounds like a massive honeybee screaming for its life. A block over, a freight train blasts its horn like a goddamn apocalypse bell. It reverberates through the city’s bones.
If there is a cathedral of the modern world, its hymn is noise. Its prayer is commerce. This cacophony—it's not worshipping God. It's worshipping goods and dollars.
In the middle of this noise, I’ll Be There plays. The Four Tops remind me: love can be a lighthouse. A lifeboat. A hand in the dark. I think of the Welsh film by the same name. The kind of devotion that doesn’t ask for perfection—just presence.
Then Glen Campbell sings Wichita Lineman. A song about distance, static, the fragility of connection. How we read into signals—green lights, pulsing dots, moments online—and we make meaning from nothing, because meaning is all we have.
Harry Belafonte lifts the mood with A Woman is Smarter. It’s cheeky and true. We puff our chests and pretend we’re wise, but in the end, it’s often the women who know the score. I smile and think of how many times I’ve been gently corrected with a look.
Then the heartbreak returns—Hank Williams with Lovesick Blues. This one guts me. There’s a reason they don’t make movies about this kind of loss. It’s too real. Too brutal. No plot. Just ache.
Ella Fitzgerald throws a curveball with Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered. I expected a soft classic from a scratchy master. Instead, I get wit, sex, brandy, and raw longing.
“I’ve sinned a lot, I mean, a lot. But I’m like sweet seventeen a lot.”
“Horizontally speaking, he’s at his very best.”
Ella isn’t playing coy. She’s living. It’s not about regret—it’s about reckoning.
Why do I feel giddy and light? Three hours of sleep or the music—or other matters? I'm probably having a stroke.
7:45 AM – Coda
The morning is almost over. I’m on the last leg of my drive. Patsy Cline’s Crazy bleeds through the speakers, and it’s everything. Hope and heartbreak in perfect balance. She knew all along, and she sang it anyway. That’s courage. That’s grace.
I pull into the driveway. The lawn needs cutting. I swap out Cline for The Bends by Radiohead and let Thom Yorke carry me through the mowing, the trimming, the endless buzzing of modern life. It’s a different kind of white noise.
It has been quite a morning.
One I may forget tomorrow—or remember forever.
#music #journal #essay #osxs #poetry
WolfCast Home Page – Listen, follow, subscribe
Thank you for coming here and walking through the garden of my mind. No day is as brilliant in its moment as it is gilded in memory. Embrace your experience and relish gorgeous recollection.
Into every life a little light will shine. Thank you for being my luminance in whatever capacity you may. Shine on, you brilliant souls!
— Go back home and read MORE by Wolf Inwool
— Visit the archive
I welcome feedback at my inbox
