“His laugh is made of porch swings and lemonade.” That’s one of my favorite lines from Augusten Burroughs memoir, Dry. It put me in a place of lazy summer days, just like the one I was having today, where I could spend as much time as I wished reading. Burroughs calls his book a memoir, but also has an author’s note “This memoir is based on my experiences over a ten year period. Names have been changed, characters combined, and events compressed. Certain episodes are imaginative re-creation, and those episodes are not intended to portray actual events.” I love it! This is my life, shaken up and stirred around, with a pinch of glitter swirled in!

As his title suggests, the majority of events that unfold involve his journey from being an alcoholic to becoming sober. Burroughs has a compelling way of introducing us to the “characters” in his life, so much so that I felt sadness when misfortune would come about, or a relationship would end, or a past mistreatment would be recalled. His journey to becoming sober has a big hiccup along the way, and you will have to read it to see how sobriety works out for him. Or if you must know, just ask me in the comments and I will tell you! I was moved to tears, laughed several times, and was completely enthralled. It comes in a very close second to Burrough’s book Running With Scissors.

Another book I read is Perfect Chaos: a daughter’s journey to survive bipolar, a mother’s struggle to save her, by Linea Johnson and Cinda Johnson. This one made me get big tears rolling down my cheeks. It hit way too close to home, and I debated taking a break from it, but I couldn’t bring myself to put it down. It made me so grateful for the loving and insightful mother that I have, who took care of me during a deep depression, and enabled me to recover without having to go into a psychiatric ward. I came very close, but my mom knew just what to say and do to help me out of the abyss that I found myself trapped in.

Perfect Chaos also gave me an honest, detailed, depiction of ECT, which was recommended to me as an option by my psychiatrist at one point, which I declined. It gave me a better sense of the intensity of symptoms I should be experiencing in order to consider ECT. I know that bipolar symptoms can be viewed on a continuum and I seem to be on the less extreme end for the majority of the time; I take preventative measures to try to ensure it stays that way. You never really know what this disorder has in store for you, and thoughts and moods can change quickly. I just have to be thankful for all the amazing people in my life who make this journey of mine meaningful and joyful. I know I talked about me and not the book so let me just say that the book is compelling and fascinating to anyone whose life is touched with bipolar.

And for now, to bring more balance to my life, I will put down the books for a few days and focus on other things. I have been buying and reading a book a day for the last week. My husband caught on and suggested I get a library card. We are hoping the sudden interest in purchasing books is not the start of a mania. Tomorrow I will get my library card!