Historically speaking, if I was in a room and there was someone in that room who could make my life an utter hell on earth, I would find that person, hope they would engage me in conversation, feel like I’d found the lost piece to my puzzle, see pictures in my head of us waking up together, our children, our adjoining burial plots fifty years down the line, and I’d truly believe that it was all for the best. For some reason, God made the women I’m attracted to crazy.

What is it that attracted me to these lost lambs? Probably a combination of things, not least of which being that I was a lost lamb myself, so I probably felt safe with them (ironic, I know). Growing up in a crazy family sets you up for this kind of thing, if you’re not careful. And maybe I was willing to ride along through the roller coaster’s low valleys in the name of the oh so glorious peaks. But, as the years went on, the appeal for the crazies has lessened, from sheer exhaustion.

They haven’t all been crazy, but I have to face the fact that, more often than not, they have been. I suppose we’re all crazy, really. Some of us just find different ways to deal with it. Look at me and my sister. We are two sides of the same coin. We just dealt with our troubles in different ways: she felt no sense of self and dove into a drug- and alcohol-clouded spiral. I threw myself into my songs. I just got lucky that my method was more constructive.