Best Unexpected Email

You know those moments when you look in the mirror or think more closely on your life and who you are and what you've become and feel like the world would not miss you one bit? That you leave no mark on this mortal coil and life just seems to continue to turn and that you have made no lasting impression? Sometimes I have those moments and with the number forty rapidly approaching; my god, less than two years away, I feel this like a black cloak weighing me down. Then I receive an email like this and it turns those cloudy, ominous, dark days into Paris in the springtime.

Ilsa,

I just want to take a moment to say something.  Lately I've been going through a pretty rough time:  feeling lousy and very depressed, the overnight shift has been really wearing me down and I spend my days off basically never leaving the house.  Because I sleep during the day even on my day off, I never see you or any other of my friends.  I know somethings gotta change but I'm not sure what at the moment.  And then I'll look at your blog.

You always always always look at the positive in everything.  You celebrate a book or some music or a film with such joy and abandon.  I used to do that.  You get out and about with friends and family going to new restaurants and new and interesting places.  You went to Italy ... to the British Isles . . . to Belgium . . . and now it looks like California?  My God, you're the most inspiring person I know.  Every time I see your blog, while I'm sitting around in my morass of apathy, pessimism and depression, I feel like I should be taking you as an example of how to live.  Not to simply exist --  but to really live -- to experience life and all the interesting and exciting things in it.  Each post, I think, pushes me a little closer to raising myself up from the depths and making a change. 

I just wanted you to know that you're an inspiration to me -- a beautiful, legendary, super star!  I just hope that one of these days I'll be able to shake off this blanket of sadness and be more like you.  This is just my clumsy way of letting you know how much I think of you.

Love and mittens,

Rick