When I was younger, I didn’t think much about legacies. I needed all my energy to go from day to day. At the same time, I wanted to do something big to be known by. I didn’t know what that would be, but I was going to do it. Oh, to be young and bipolar!
In my 50s, I wanted my stories to be my legacy. I still do, but very few people have read them, and they’re not picking up very much traction. So the messages in my stories remain unread, and that will not be my legacy.
I never thought much about my students being my legacy, mostly because I am not a popular teacher. I’m not by any means a bad professor, but since being prescribed meds, I am not the high-energy, zany professor I was before. (I’m also not the depressed professor I was before.) But maybe this is short-changing my abilities and my relationship with my students.
I am now convinced I will never know what my legacy is. Perhaps it will be simply being a kind person. Part of being bipolar and being medicated has been realizing how ordinary a person I am.
Words Like Me 