Depression

There was a time, about a dozen years ago, when my chronic and nearly uncontrolled sadness was driving me towards the logic of suicide. My wife Sheila had died the year before and I could make no sense of it. There was no sense; no plan; no divine or hyper-human reasoning to it. There never is when "death" is involved.

My friends and relatives could only utter little homilies. No one I knew talked at a true enough level. Except for my former student Tina -- she was true, and didn't overtalk the moment. She saved my life -- and then several years later, threw me away again (for a former lover, now her huband).

Depression has always been a familiar element in my lifestyle. I don't know why. It is not debilitating -- though it does become a nuisance. It keeps me more of an observer than a participant.

Now in my later years it is more an old friend then