Instead of Prozac

I walk about two miles a day five days a week--to work and back. In these walks I have a lot of time to think, and I think about all kinds of things. What I would do with fictitious lottery winnings? What do I want to do with my life? What am I doing with my life? What was this episode of my life about? What were my motives about doing something in my past and what did I tell myself were my motives at the time?

Bascially, I just examine things about my life and myself and see what I can learn from them. Lately something occurred to me about the two serious relationships I have had in my life. I entered into each of them following a period of depression. In the first, it was after my sojourn in NYC which was a rough time for me. It got so bad that I would sleep 16 hours a day (on average) for about a month--a month when I left my house basically only to buy food. Pretty classic signposts of depression. Moving back to my hometown was not an intant fix. Last fall and winter in Chicago I was waffling on a similar path. I had a job and a few more friends, so it never got anywhere near that bad, but it was a hard time. It was hard to be that self-sufficient, expecially as the friends I had brought with me here started to find their own lives an be less available to me (jobs, hobbies, new friends, etc.). The lack of community bith times hurt me. I like being a member of a community of friends; it is important to my emotional well-being.

Both Eric and Patrick showed up in my life at times when I felt alone and depressed, and both relationships started hard and fast. I jumped in way over my head immediately both times (although with Eric, I refused to label any of the things I was feeling but that didn't make the feelings any different). My life underwent a change with/because of both of those relationships. I went from sad to happy, depressed to joyful. Other people treat depression with therapy or drugs (Zicam, Prozac, whatever), and it seems I treat them with men--with falling in love.

I have never had a serious relationship that started with me in a normal, healthy frame of mind. Okay, so maybe normal and healthy can't really ever be assigned to my frame of mind, but what I mean is I have never started a serious relationship in a mental emotional state that corresponds to my usual self. I have only started them in periods of turmoil. I would say that I started dating Dan and John in that mind set, and whatever happened with Luke was from a normal mind set, but in those situations I didn't seem interested in fully participating in the struggle of a serious relationship or really fighting for them to be in my life. Now, in some cases (John) they totally didn't deserve it, and in others maybe I wasn't actually interested in anything more then what happened (Dan and Luke), but it all begs the question what would happen if I ever met a truly fantastic guy that I really liked when I was at my norm or was happy? It also begs the question, would I ever really like a guy if I met him when I was at my norm or even happy?