On the Road: Dancing with the Stars

I have survived the flight from hell out of Reagan Airport. After 12 days on the road, I finally slept in my own bed. To pick up from where I left off:

Wednesday morning: I notice there are bags under my eyes. I have not had a decent night's sleep since the day before I boarded my flight out of San Diego. Now I'm in Washington on the last leg of my road trip. Thankfully, I have some chill time built into today.

Wednesday evening: A cab drops me off at Andrew Mellon Auditorium, venue for NAMI's annual fundraising gala. Andrew Mellon was a robber baron/philanthropist cut from the same cloth as Carnegie and Rockefeller. His personal art collection forms the basis of the National Gallery of Art. This particular venue is a miniature Grand Central Station, with a ceiling about as high. Maybe it was Mellon's private bath house, or where he stabled his prize stallion. It's the perfect spot for seating more than 300 high-rollers for a gala event. I am dressed for the occasion, in my black business suit. I am here, representing HealthCentral, which sponsors this blog at BipolarConnect.

I enter through a side door to an anteroom, where a pre-event VIP function is taking place. I spot Michael Fitzpatrick, executive director of NAMI, and with a straight face tell him that security confiscated my didgeridoo and won't give it back. A few months before, at the NAMI convention in San Diego, I had honked my didge for him.

I pick out board member Fred Frese. Fred is a legendary mental health advocate and a very gracious individual. He enquires about my didge. Clearly, I have a reputation to uphold. Ken Duckworth, medical director at NAMI, greets me like an old friend. Ken has been at the forefront of getting doctors to pay attention to how mental illness sets us up as sitting ducks for heart disease and diabetes and all manner of physical complications.

By now I am reasonably comfortable. Introversion and low-grade depression are my default settings, and I also have a bit of social anxiety to contend with. I would have been voted Quietest in high school, but I was too shy to lobby for the distinction. I am an outsider by nature and calling. The day I become an insider I have no right to call myself a journalist.

This may be a social function, but I have a job to do. Each connection I make, each connection I successfully reestablish and reinforce greatly increases my chances of my emails being answered, my phone calls being returned. Fortunately, I perk up around people, but being sociable drains my psychic batteries very quickly.

The people in the room are performing a change-partners-and-dance routine. We chat briefly, then find someone else to talk to. I ask Suzanne Vogel-Scibilia if she is enjoying her leisure time now that she is no longer president of NAMI. Turns out you can't keep a good advocate down. She has a whole load of new things on her plate.

I am introduced to the individual who founded NAMI's family-to-family program. This is NAMI's flagship production, which has enormously benefited countless family members. We may be the ones with mental illness, but our families are the ones who suffer from it. I consider it a great honor to meet her, but I neglect to ask for a business card, and I'm horrible at recalling names.