for the love of

citesc o carte misto de ruth ozeki. imi aduce aminte stilul lui tim - cu care am avut acum vreo 10 ani conversatia de mai jos. din cind in cind ma intorc la ea, ca sa mi-aduc aminte ce-am invatat atunci.
o pun la pastrare aici, in jurnal, sa-mi fie mai la indemina cind oi avea nevoie.
data viitoare a taste of ruth ozeki. 

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domnule, may i have an autograph?
i really need one, im depressed. and you're clearly on your way to becoming a world-acclaimed author.
what is depression? 
im turning 39 tomoro and im thinking that if i can crack a good answer to that question (i.e. an answer that identifies causes, mechanisms and solutions) then i can enjoy the festivities that my colleagues put on every year with much ado. i guess it's worth a full hour's thinking - because i have decided im taking a long reading bath at 6 and then im in bed at 8. yes, im that depressed.
so here we go:
but i cant do it.
i have been typing and deleting for 20 minutes and im not getting anywhere with this.
ill be back.
i cant decide between clark and maurice as my favourite. id have a one night stand with huffy. 
sinziana is leaving on 3 august, keep fingers crossed all goes well with that, i really need it to, we all do.
miss am is covering for me at cosbuc and care, aint that somethin?
r.

Those who merit paradise this day are happily employed.

OK, here’s an autograph. 
Meanwhile, the best definition I ever heard of depression was that depression is when the person you are on the outside is not a true reflection of who you are on the inside, that you’ve become a fraud to the world and you’re afraid or ashamed to be yourself.  And you don’t see the value in yourself and you’re convinced that no one would love you if they really knew you.
The one other thing I think you need to know about depression is that there is endogenous and exogenous depression.  If you are convinced that your life would be fine if only [something] then you’re probably having exogenous depression and you’ll get over it.  If you see everything as futile, nothing will help, yes, there’s lots could be fixed, but you’ll still feel bad, then maybe you’re having endogenous depression.  Endogenous depression is really insidious.  It feeds on itself and it eats you from the inside.
I was stuck in a depression once for more than two years.  I took antidepressants, but they were an earlier generation of drugs, before this anti-serotonin uptake drugs (or whatever they are) that are so popular today.  It seems today that an awful lot of people are on antidepressants.  I think probably most of them shouldn’t be, and I think that most of them, once they start taking antidepressants, will never get off them.  That, I think, is not good.
I got out of my depression by seeing a therapist, but I hesitate to recommend that to people.  I don’t trust people easily.  I especially don’t trust strangers easily.  You have to have a therapist who is a stranger.  Friends won’t do.  You can’t tell your guilty secrets to a friend.  You have to tell them to someone who you know won’t judge you, and, since you can’t know a stranger that well, it ends up having to be someone who don’t care if they will judge you.  I was lucky.  I hit, by sheer dumb luck, on a guy who was really right for me.  I didn’t care what he thought of me, I told him all my guilty secrets, bit by bit, he didn’t judge me, but eventually I began to worry about what he thought of me.  That is, when I started to make progress, it was because I was afraid of boring Henry.  That is, one of the big problems with depression is that you get into loops.  You obsess about the same things week after week, but until you start telling someone what’s on your mind, you don’t realize how banal and repetitive your thinking is.  When you realize that you’re saying the same things week after week, you begin to rethink some things and you begin to get out of your rut.
So that’s what I know about depression.
Do you think Sinziana’s imminent leaving is part of this?  It could be, but I’m guessing it’s not central.  I agree that it’s important for Sinziana to do this.  It will change her life, even if she hates it and returns to Romania with a vow never to leave again, it will open her eyes and change her life. I think she’ll do fine.  She has good survival skills.  But that’s the fear every parent has, isn’t it?  Our babies have to leave before we are sure they are ready.
I’d like to help you with your depression if it continues.  I’m not sure I know how.  It ends up being healing that only the victim can do for herself.
‘Mambletoves’ really is based on a sentimental memory I have of my father going off to work when I was 2-3 years old.  I would stand in the window and wave goodbye and call out ‘I love you and like you’  (somehow I knew those were different concepts)  and he would turn and wave and repeat it back to me, then he’d turn and try to walk away and I would call out again, he’d turn and respond and turn away again, and he would sort of two step his way to the corner and disappear, leaving me frantically crying out ‘I love you and like you’  repeatedly hoping he’d respond again, but by then he was gone, and probably considered himself lucky at that.
Anyway, ‘mambletoves’ (or ‘marbletoes’) is a way to say ‘I love you and like you’ without going through all of that drama, but sometimes, you just have to say it:
Roxana, I love you and like you.  And I know who you really are.
Tim
  
read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, 
re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, 
dismiss whatever insults your own soul,
--Walt Whitman, Preface to Leaves of Grass