This is my way of coping with the blues, with depression. When I feel (rather rare for me, thank goodness!) I just put out that official notification, “I am down”! and I know that the people who care will immediately buoy me up with their messages.

I suppose different people handle depression differently; some like to retire into their shells, lick their wounds and come out when they are better…but me, I shout loud and clear for help…and I always get help and each loving message helps me enormously in getting back on even keel.

I am a looooong way from the serenity I want to achieve…but meanwhile…. I know that I am cared for and appreciated, but every now and then, the shadow falls over my eyes, and I yell for help!

Those who commented and those who didn’t but who, I know, do care for me…thank you so much. I am not too proud to ask for help when I need it, and I receive it in ample measure immediately.

I am quite myself again, and the prevailing emoticon is :) now….the barometer is set to “fair”.

OK, the reason for the down: I had lost touch with someone who lived with my family for 7 years, and to whom I had been very close. I heard last week that he died of lung cancer, at the age of 58. I like his wife, his sisters were very close to me too….I felt so very miserable that I, who am NOT a person who loses touch, had done exactly that…for over 15 years I had no contact with them, as they, and I (before the internet, of course!) moved around where work (or spouse’s work) took us….how I wished I had been to visit him once….those empty regrets that keep on coming up to disturb the mind and heart.

Now I am forgiving myself for the lapse, trying to realize that these things happen, and making a resolve to keep in touch with everyone, even though at times it IS overwhelming to try and do so.