Last week, I toyed with the idea of discontinuing, or significantly lessening, my medications. It's an idea I've been mulling over on and off for months actually. I've felt off, sad, purposeless and unmotivated to really do anything to change it. When someone attempted to joke with me - rare in my line of work - I felt hard-pressed to come up with a response. Hadn't I once been quick witted? Was I, perhaps, just getting old?

The vivacious me I know and love felt nowhere in sight, and I missed her.

Today, after four full days of socializing with friends and celebrating this thing called life, I saw her again in the mirror. Weary and worn, but definitely there.

I realized that it is not the pills, or lack thereof, that subdues the real me. It is working home alone, and even when working outside the house, seeing through projects for which I have little passion. I have known this for some time, but how I will change it is unclear. My boss just gave me a raise, a generous raise, well over the cost of living. The job is not difficult, or unpleasant. These things make the idea of leaving seem a fool's errand.

But my despondency came, even more so I think, from not reaching out to and seeing friends on a regular basis.

My son spent Thanksgiving with his father. I dreaded the long weekend without him. Beyond Thanksgiving Day, spent with my friend April in Colorado Springs, nothing was planned. What would I do with all that time? I put out a few tentative phone calls and e-mails to friends, but somehow, expected nothing. I'd finish some half-completed house projects, take Ally for long walks, do some Christmas shopping, hopefully meet a friend for lunch.

Then, the phone rang. And never stopped.

My friend Lane, wanting to meet Saturday for window shopping and lunch in Denver's swanky Cherry Creek North. Diane, saying she'd love to go dancing Saturday night. Pam, wanting to head out for appetizers and drinks Friday eve. And these things preceded by a Thanksgiving Day dinner and drinks out in downtown Colorado Springs with April and Pam. A pub crawl Wednesday eve with the members of one of the singles socials group with which I've pushed myself to re-engage.

Pam, who is between homes, is staying with me on and off until the first of the year. An arrangement I'd first thought would be tension filled has been anything but.

Friday eve, she and her boyfriend waited downstairs while I primped to go out with them. I realized I felt happy. Anticipatory, but also, happy right there in my house, at that moment. It was, I realized, because of the sound of people coming from below me. Friends, laughing and conversing comfortably in my living room.

The feeling overtook me again Thursday morning when, Pam and I, both a bit punchy from the previous evening's pub crawl,
hung companionably in the kitchen together. I stood at the counter, unwrapping cream cheese, pouring milk and mixing the ingredients for the caramel apple cheesecake that would top our later dinner in April's home. Pam read the paper. We both drank coffee. Neither of us wore makeup. We chatted and joked.

And I felt happy.

It returned Saturday, as Lane and I wandered the streets and expensive shops of Denver, discussing subjects sometimes painful, sometimes light. No matter the subject, I was content deep in my core because my company was the finest. Time with Lane, among my oldest and favorite of friends, is precious. Always soothing and good for the soul.

I drove home, thinking back on the afternoon and ahead to the evening. Thinking, this is a good life.

Diane and I danced until bar time last night. We danced more with one another than with anyone else. Once we began, we scarcely stopped. We danced until our feet ached. And danced some more.

And at some point, fairly early in the evening, what hadn't happened for me in perhaps a year or more did. The music filled me up and overtook me. I danced without thought, scarcely conscious of anyone else, of anything else, but the music. I danced, as the saying goes, like no one was looking. Indeed, I cared not a thing for who stood along the sidelines, or whether or not I had a partner.

It has been months since I bought a new CD, typically listening to the background noise of a Top 40 radio station rather than seeking out something interesting and unusual. I'd questioned, at times, whether my love of music had faded and it simply wasn't as important to me as it had once been.

But here it was. As powerful as ever.

And here, too, was I. Here I had been all weekend.

Overwhelmed with music. Surrounded all weekend by those I love. My house overflowing with laughter, my heart warm with happiness.

I missed my son, yes. But I'd missed myself, too. Getting her back, finding me and discovering I've been quelled but not extinguished, was invaluable. Now, the question is, how do I keep her?