Over the years, I've built up a reputation among family and friends of being upbeat, silly, and having an active sense of humor.

There have been times when I have felt terribly out-of-sorts, to put it mildly, when I have deliberately coasted on that reputation... as in, even when I wasn't really being silly, humorous, or upbeat, family and friends interacted with me as if I was because that's what they expected me to be. It has allowed me to kind of slide through some spells of feeling-awful and let the bad spell fly under everyone's radar.

The next round of coasting-on-my-reputation has been howling at the door for a while. Tonight, it may well have arrived in conjunction with the end of my one failsafe, NEVER-too-downcast-to-enjoy-it diversion for the past 13 years.

My team is gone. There goes the sole activity that, no matter how out-of-sorts (and coasting on my reputation) I was, I never lost enthusiasm for. Ever.

This is not good. That's as level as I know how to be. And without the best tool I've had in over a decade to help my mood bounce back, there's a risk that my reputation for good humor WON'T be enough to camoflage that I'm feeling down in the mouth.

Shoot.