Bruni in the City: Number 100 is on His Way

Bruni in the City: Number 100 is on His Way

A Column by Christina Bruni

I Fell for a Pinhead

Readers: I broke the cardinal rule of dating.

Years ago, a woman gave me a psychic reading in her apartment on the waterfront in Sheepshead Bay. She told me: “Don’t throw yourself at a guy. Remember: you’re a diamond, not a rhinestone.”

Diamond, my ass. My brilliance hasn’t attracted a guy to me.

So, my curiosity got the better of me. I threw down a challenge to T.—the guy I have pined for since 2016—and sent him a short e-mail in these exact words: “I realize you don’t like me and that’s okay.” The cardinal sin. Then:

“You keep talking about your numerous ex-girlfriends. I’m a woman with a photogenic face and skinny body and I can’t get one guy to go on one date with me. What’s your secret?”

Since he was “date bait” himself with striking good looks and a kind heart, couldn’t he spare a few alluring ideas about how I could reel a guy in? Couldn’t he tell me this as one great friend to another? I clicked send on the e-mail and shut down my computer for the night. 

T. responded: “Most romances are played badly just on the surface level. Even the ones where people are happier are adolescent. Are you at the library this week? We can talk then.”

I responded to T: “Yes, I do attract guys—what a psychic called ‘turkeys.’ Like the guy with the screen name sexywomanneeded—adolescent indeed. How is a guy going to get a woman if he frames it in terms of what she can give him not what he can give her?”

Then I told T.: “I’m not going to wear a cleavage-bearing mini dress, yet apparently, that’s some guy’s sole criteria for a love match.”

Our conversation quickly sidestepped that he was the first guy I was madly and physically attracted to. He had conveniently deflected any reference to my comment that he didn’t like me.

That Sunday was the first time in my life that I ever felt like something was wrong with me. Having a diagnosis of schizophrenia doesn’t upset me and hasn’t upset me for decades. It only crushed me to know that a kind, sensitive and intelligent guy like T. didn’t like a kind and compassionate and elegant lady like me. 

“Pinhead!” I wanted to tell him. “By all means go out and get another chick that will treat you like shit all over again. Get going—Number 100 is on his way to me.”

It’s over—partly because T. has moved to Austin, TX where he found a job.

T. and I were a photogenic item out in public. I was confident people thought we were a romantic item. Thus, when we appeared together I wanted to wear a tee-shirt that proclaimed: He’s Not My Boyfriend. Try Your Luck.

The ending with T. reminded me of the Donna Summer song, lyrics about the cake left out in the rain. It took so long to bake the budding romance with him and I won’t ever have this recipe again either. The cake’s been soaked. That’s all there is to it.

On some days, I still pine for a guy. On other days, I’m happy to be alone. I miss the cake frosting.

My Mental Health Journey: Mirroring Success Through the Eyes of a Relationship

My Mental Health Journey: Mirroring Success Through the Eyes of a Relationship
A Column by J. Alfreda
Success is Obtained by Letting Go of the Toxic Pieces
Our relationship has been strained at best, a really rocky road. It’s a love/hate relationship that borders on psychosis. But, in the final analysis, I am the one who knows her best. She is the closest person to me. She is me.
There was a pouring of rain on our already strained relationship. You see, I have schizophrenia, bipolar type, which onset at age 20. Many voices and much pain have infiltrated my mind over the past 35 years. I have just arrived at a place of readiness to accept this illness as mine.
You might possibly think it’s strange that it took me so long, but I have always thought of my illness as another entity, an alter-ego, an arch nemesis. I refused to see myself as a whole person. My war had an enemy though I couldn’t see that the enemy was unintentionally me. Success would start with forging my “selves” and attaining as much peace as possible. 
Schizophrenia is a different realm of reality. You realize what you go through intermittently. But, when you are there, it is real. It is marked by delusions, extreme paranoia, suicidal thoughts, steep highs and lulls of depression in my case.
In the beginning, it was like having my life, mind and soul hollowed out and strewn across the four corners of the Earth in scraps, feeling like I had to travel to each site and retrieve them piece by piece in a zombie state. The disease alienates you from yourself.
Schizophrenia is a useless, evil being who can’t stand in a church for fear of bursting into flames. It is a pimp that bids actions contrary to your will, turning you inside-out. That is, until you fix it.
I walked around in this nightmarish, delusional state for 24 years before a medication was created that I would respond to and not put me in the conveyor-belt-shuffle-mode.
When I was 20, I was sure that by now I would have an engineering firm, a great home, kids, and the whole nine yards, but that hasn’t been in the plan for me. I have barely been able to take care of myself. I did manage to finish college, though on the revolving door plan; one quarter in school, the next in the hospital and so on. I changed my major from chemical engineering to journalism because after the first break, with the tranquilizers I was taking (that was all they had for schizophrenia back then), I found I could not comprehend my coursework anymore. I was in my junior year before the break.
You can imagine why I would rebel against this entity. It has undermined my every opportunity and effort to gain success, but it is a part of me and I have resolved to make myself whole.
After some soul-searching prompts, my first stop was in the gratitude market. You can’t ask the Universe for more without thanking It for what you already have. It just wouldn’t be polite. I bought a gratitude journal in which I write daily those things I am grateful for: past, present and future.
The little things that I appreciate and make me happy fascinate me the most. In my first entry I always thank God for “waking me up this morning clothed in my right mind,” a phrase my grandfather used to say in his prayers, which has taken on a new meaning for me. You can guess why.
I’ve also created a gratitude board somewhat akin to a vision board, visually celebrating all of the things that make me happy, appreciative and that I am thankful for. It has things as frivolous as vintage clothing and jewelry, as marvelous as a multi-hued sunset or a cobalt night sky, and as welcoming as family and all that it entails. It helps me to embrace the positives of my life.
Some would say I lost everything in the deal. It may seem that way from one perspective if viewing my past, but it is far from the truth. In picking up the pieces for the umpteenth time, I discovered me, the whole of myself. I am coming from a natural place, a place of gratitude and love─not someone else’s definition of who I am, or even who I think I am; it is a place of true character.
My true character has been revealed by letting go of the toxic pieces and embracing the positive aspects of my true self. This is how I define success.