Marian Keyes

when happiness makes a guest appearance in one's life,it's important to make the most of it.It may not stay around for long and when it has gone wouldn't it be terrible to think that all the time one could have been happy was wasted worrying when the happiness would be taken away.

I need you to get inside Wayne's head. I need someone who thinks a bit left field and in your own unpleasant way, Helen Walsh, you're a genius.He had a point. I'm lazy and illogical. I've limited people skills. I'm easily bored and easily irritated. But I have moments of brilliance. They come and they go and I can't depend on them but they do happen.

People don't tend to employ me. I'm the wrong personality type. Or rather, people do tend to employ me for a short time and then they sack me. A film broker once told me, as she terminated my contract, that I have a misleading sort of face. "You're pretty", she complained. "Your features are symmetrical and there was an article in Grazia that says human beings are programmed to find those with symmetrical features more pleasing to they eye. So this isn't my fault, I was simply responding to a biological imperative. You've even teeth, so when you smile, you look...sweet, I suppose. But you're not, are you?""I hope not," I said."You see, there you go again. You're a smart-arse and you've no ability to filter your thoughts---""And my thoughts are often abrasive.""Exactly.""I'll just get my brushes and sponges and leave.""If you would.

I forced myself to stop thinking about it. I went to the room in my brain where all my thoughts about Adam lived and disconnected the electricity and boarded up all the doors and windows, so nothing could get out.Obviously it was very unsightly. There were bound to be complaints from the neighboring thoughts. But I had no choice.

It was only when the salt water of my tears ran into my cuts and made them stingthat I discovered I was crying.

My life was a wreck. I had nothing, no material possessions, unless debts counts. Fourteen pairs of shoes that were too small for me was all I had to show after a lifetime of profligate spending. I hadn__ a job. I hadn__ any qualifications. I__ achieved nothing with my life. I__ never been happy. I had no husband or boyfriend.

Waiting to be 'better' is the wrong approach. It's learning to live with it.

People get sick and sometimes they get better and sometimes they don't. And it doesn't matter if the sickness is cancer or if it's depression. Sometimes the drugs work and sometimes they don't. Sometimes the drugs work for a while and then they stop. Sometimes the alternative stuff works and sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes you wonder if no outside interference makes any difference at all; if an illness is like a storm, if it simply has to run its course and, at the end of it, depending on how robust you are, you will be alive. Or you will be dead.

The last time I__ been unwell, suicidally depressed, whatever you want to call it, the reactions of my friends and family had fallen into several different camps:The Let__ Laugh It Off merchants: Claire was the leading light. They hoped that joking about my state of mind would reduce it to a manageable size. Most likely to say, __eeling any mad urges to fling yourself into the sea?__he Depression Deniers: they were the ones who took the position that since there was no such thing as depression, nothing could be wrong with me. Once upon a time I__ have belonged in that category myself. A subset of the Deniers was The Tough Love people. Most likely to say, __hat have you got to be depressed about?__he It__ All About Me bunch: they were the ones who wailed that I couldn__ kill myself because they__ miss me so much. More often than not, I__ end up comforting them. My sister Anna and her boyfriend, Angelo, flew three thousand miles from New York just so I could dry their tears. Most likely to say, __ave you any idea how many people love you?__he Runaways: lots and lots of people just stopped ringing me. Most of them I didn__ care about, but one or two were important to me. Their absence was down to fear; they were terrified that whatever I had, it was catching. Most likely to say, __ feel so helpless _ God, is that the time?_ Bronagh _ though it hurt me too much at the time to really acknowledge it _ was the number one offender.The Woo-Woo crew: i.e. those purveying alternative cures. And actually there were hundreds of them _ urging me to do reiki, yoga, homeopathy, bible study, sufi dance, cold showers, meditation, EFT, hypnotherapy, hydrotherapy, silent retreats, sweat lodges, felting, fasting, angel channelling or eating only blue food. Everyone had a story about something that had cured their auntie/boss/boyfriend/next-door neighbour. But my sister Rachel was the worst _ she had me plagued. Not a day passed that she didn__ send me a link to some swizzer. Followed by a phone call ten minutes later to make sure I__ made an appointment. (And I was so desperate that I even gave plenty of them a go.) Most likely to say, __his man__ a miracle worker._ Followed by: __hat__ why he__ so expensive. Miracles don__ come cheap.__here was often cross-pollination between the different groupings. Sometimes the Let__ Laugh It Off merchants teamed up with the Tough Love people to tell me that recovering from depression is __imply mind over matter_. You just decide you__e better. (The way you would if you had emphysema.)Or an All About Me would ring a member of the Woo-Woo crew and sob and sob about how selfish I was being and the Woo-Woo crew person would agree because I had refused to cough up two grand for a sweat lodge in Wicklow.Or one of the Runaways would tiptoe back for a sneaky look at me, then commandeer a Denier into launching a two-pronged attack, telling me how well I seemed. And actually that was the worst thing anyone could have done to me, because you can only sound like a self-pitying malingerer if you protest, __ut I don__ feel well. I feel wretched beyond description.__ot one person who loved me understood how I__ felt. They hadn__ a clue and I didn__ blame them, because, until it had happened to me, I hadn__ a clue either.

Two and a half years ago I__ learned to stop wanting comfort from the people around me, because they couldn__ give it. We were all too scared. I was terrified and so were they. No one could understand what was happening to me, and when they couldn__ make me better they felt helpless and guilty and eventually resentful. Yes, they loved me, my head knew that even if my heart couldn__ feel it, but there was a small part of them that was angry. As if it was my choice to become depressed and that I was deliberately resisting the medication that was meant to fix me.

I couldn__ be with people and I didn__ want to be alone. Suddenly my perspective whooshed and I was far out in space, watching the world. I could see millions and millions of people, all slotted into their lives; then I could see me____ lost my place in the universe. It had closed up and there was nowhere for me to be. I was more lost than I had known it was possible for any human being to be.

If you lose someone, you feel a loss, then after a while you fill in the hole in your life and the loss gradually gets smaller and smaller and eventually goes away. There's a point to the pain. There's a reason and a direction.

The back windows looked out over the fields, then the Atlantic, maybe a hundred yards away. Actually, I'm just making that bit up. I had no idea how far away the sea was. Only men could do things like that. "Half a mile." "Fifty yards." Giving directions, that sort of thing. I could look at a woman and say "Thirty-six C." Or "Let's try it in the next size up." But I had no idea how far away Tim's sea was except that I wouldn't want to walk to it in high heels.

So I'm back again to the eternal question, the one that has plagued me all my life: How Do Other People Do It? How come they were given life's rule book and I missed out? Where was I when God was dispensing capability and cop on? Looking at shoes, probably.

Failed relationships can be described as so much wasted make-up.

Honestly, if you're looking for love and you're not too choosy, hang around a hardware store fingering screws.

What doesn't kill us makes us funnier.

I love Prada. Not so much the clothes, which are for malnourished thirteen-year-olds, but I covet, with covety covetousness, the shoes and handbags. Like, I LOVE them. If I was given a choice between world peace and a Prada handbag, I'd dither. (I'm not proud of this, I'm only saying.)