My imagination, my ability to understand the way love and people grow over time, how passion can surprise and renew, utterly failed me.

In a strange way, I had fallen in love with my depression.

it's the people you are close to, the ones who love you, theo nes who have seen your heart, who have touched your soul- to them, it is obvious that something is wrong or missing. your heart and soul are missing. they feel it. it hurts them. it kills them.

That's the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it's impossible to ever see the end. The fog is like a cage without a key.

I need the thing that happens when your brain shuts off and your heart turns on.

If you want to see that human story unfold, if you want to understand that only the unexpected life is worth a damn, spend some time with 46 years of Lou Reed's work: music that leaped and then looked. Safety is for the godless and the faithless.