Little Happy Light Energy Lamp

My god, am I happy January is over.

It doesn't mean our troubles are over--Dave has come down with something that's camping out in his lungs, and Dave's mother fell down and broke her knee on Monday and I'm sure there'll be fall out from that, and my own mother is still not well, and there is still some dental work to be seen to for both me and Saba in February, and I'm sure Gray Kitty is going to need some follow up work up to and including surgery perhaps, and--

I'm tired. And I'm stressed. 

This morning I sat under my happy light for the prescribed ten minutes of preliminary happy light time. (It's a precaution the manufacturer suggests before starting in with the full 30 to 60 minutes of light to make sure--what?--that you don't go insane or burn out your eyeballs or something?) I didn't feel much different after, except that the light was closer to the right side of my head, just slightly, and when I turned off the light after ten minutes, it felt like my right eyeball had dilated (I checked, it hadn't) and there was a strange feeling--like, almost like I have a headache on that side, but there is no headache (if that makes any sense).  It didn't magically make me happy or even less stressed really. But maybe I'll give it time.

It's strange: Years ago, a doctor put me on an antidepressant. I took it for a year and I never felt any different (except for the feeling that I had been wrapped up in half a dozen quilts after having any and all sexual urges removed from my psyche), but everyone around me thought I was different. After I stopped taking the antidepressant, I thought: Why did I not feel any different? Well I mean I didn't feel depressed, but I didn't feel anything else either. Was that feeling, I wondered, what happiness is supposed to feel like?

Reflecting on that time (and it's been over a decade since then) made me realize that perhaps the antidepressant had just lifted the depression but that I was still responsible for putting happiness there in its place. And I have absolutely no idea what that is supposed to be like, that thing, happiness. I don't think everyone is like that, but I am, and it's a thing I've decided to live with.


Ah, just writing that is depressing. I'm not depressed, I mean, but I may be asking for my money back from the happy light company. That damned happy light!

(The thing is, by the way, actually called "Happy Light Energy Lamp" which is a little taste of what life is going to be like when we start having to learn Chinese, all of us, to please our future Chinese overlords. In fact, I think I may name my one government sanctioned child after the Happy Light Energy Lamp. Little Happy Light Energy Lamp Garcia-Lee has a nice ring to it, don't you think?)

Here's another quick story from my post-antidepressant time (maybe I've told this one before, but it's worth telling again):

Maybe a year after I stopped taking the antidepressants, I decided I wanted to try them again. I had a different doctor by then and when I told her my previous dosage, she kind of scoffed and said that that wasn't even a "therapeutic dosage." Since it hadn't felt like much was happening with the previous dosage anyway, I told her I'd be willing to start at what she felt would be a therapeutic dosage. I filled the prescription (same antidepressant, higher dosage) and went home and took one. About an hour later, I found myself sitting naked in the bathtub, just letting the water run through my fingers as I watched. I'm high, I thought. I'm stoned out of my mind on this antidepressant.

Yes, that's what it was, that prior year. It was a year of being low-grade stoned all the time.  Kind of like high school, but with more responsibility. Anyway, I stopped taking the antidepressant then and haven't taken one since.