"Remember, George: no man is a failure who has friends. "

Having recently visited my brother and his family I had been thinking about moving to Wisconsin. I haven’t been feeling my most positive lately, which tends to happen to me in the winter and I have been disappointed in the direction of my career. I was feeling like my life wasn’t getting me where I needed to go. I had also been feeling that a lot of my friends were less than that, perhaps friendly acquaintances. You know how it goes, when you are feeling bad everything sort of reflects that. “This ice cream cone is too drippy”, “Why is the dog always so damn happy to see me”, etc. In any case I was feeling down about, well, just about everything. And then I went to Darcy’s birthday party at Andrea’s apartment, which was followed by roller skating in Redwood City followed by more time at Andrea’s apartment. And, because of my friends I sort of found my center again. I realized that these people actually liked me, liked being around me, noticed when I was missing, remembered things they wanted to say to me when they saw me next, were excited that I was interested, wanted to make plans, wanted to spend time with me. It sounds so dumb, because fundamentally I think depression is dumb, but I forgot that people who I respect actually like me. So to all of you I’d like to tip my hat, from the friends far and wide, the ones who email or call, to the people who visit or don’t, to all my friends everywhere I would like to thank you for my ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ moment. Because really, it is. Except for the drippy cone, and that just sucks.