May 3, 2009

The medication Lexapro has helped me to get out of my depression. I don’t know what I would have done without it. I started with 10mg and am now at 15mg (at night because it makes me sleepy). I smile for no reason and not much seems to upset me. I feel lighter and happiness comes easily with simple things. I am more in love with Dick than I have been for a while. He’s been very supportive and is really trying to not get upset by so many things. It has made for a much lighter household and we are having fun again with simple things like the art gallery night and going out to dinner and working together on household projects. I wonder if I have had depression my whole life. I don’t remember feeling this lightness since I was a small child. It does make me wonder about how we are put together and what exactly is happiness – a decision to be a certain way?, a chemical?, a point of view?, a gene?
We attended Peter and Betsy’s 25th wedding anniversary celebration last night and everyone commented on what happy delightful people they are. They choose lightness and happiness, and when I look back at their college photos, it was the same then. As family members and friends spoke, it appears they have been this way forever – where does this inborn happiness come from? Is it the household they grew up in or is it something in themselves? They have had adversity, but they don’t dwell on it. It just makes me ponder this thing called happiness and how it works. Seeing Peter and Betsy reminded me of how we didn’t laugh in my house. There was no silliness or lightness. Everything was pretty heavy and analytical and practical. It has taken me many, many years to be comfortable being silly happy. To have whimsy and song and dance and laughter is such a wonderful thing when it happens. I think this is why I watched so many 1940’s and 1950’s comedies on TV when I was a kid. I just couldn’t get enough of watching these people who knew how to be funny. It was so foreign to me.