For some reason, I am having an atypical response

Friends, relatives, colleagues, and occasional readers (does that cover everyone? don't tell me, I don't want to know), as I may have mentioned, I am heavily depressed. Between the losses of loved ones in 2010 and 2011, the stress put upon Lydia (about which I could do nothing, and which has now been confirmed as effectively reducing her lifespan by 3 to 5 years), the various long-term effects of the Cheney-Bush recession upon our financial stability and income, and a whole list of things which, taken in sum don't really add a lot to the equation, but one or more of which could have been the fabled final straw ............... 2012 has a lot of responsibility in terms of being better.

I rejoice that some of the people who were equally injured in the past two years are starting to make recoveries and move into the next phase of their lives.I wish I had been able to do this when I was younger. Mostly, my track record is to cocoon up, suppress as much as I can, and then make a whole series of very bad, yet virtually irrevocable, decisions.

So this time, I have spent a lot of time sharing my feelings with very kind people (I truly do have a wealth of friends -- some of whom are also relatives), and mapping out a small list of things I want to accomplish over the next year. Even if all of these fall apart, nothing is going to banjax what time I have left. Possibly this is a sign of maturity. More likely, I'm just choosing a slightly diverging path, but it might be enough to work.