What more can one ask of life?

I'm thinking again. About this thing called depression. The fact that I know so many, many people who are in depression. Or at least, they think they are in depression. And many of 'em say I don't really understand depression. And that could well be. Maybe one has to truly live in depression to understand it. To grasp it. To feel it. I think I don't allow myself to be depressed for more than a few minutes. Or for a day or two. It's like if I look in the door or the gate, that's scary enough. To not want to enter. Why would I choose to enter the gates of hell? I like to think I have a choice. But people in depression tell me they don't have a choice. They are condemned. To depression. To hell. Why have I been spared? I feel down. But I suppose not down, down, down. Buried deep down. Will I be there some day? My mother was there. My father was there. Same with my brother. And my sister. Am I just deceiving myself? Am I lying to myself? Am I depressed without even knowing it? I suppose I'll be depressed if I die a slow, lingering death. I'll miss life. And knowing that it's fading away -- well, that can be depressing, I suppose. But I'll try to tell myself that I've had a good life. A happy life. A life pretty much free of depression. What more can one ask of life? --Jim Broede