(red)

i’m thankful that i’ve thought about writing this for years, and now that i’m actually typing it, i have butterflies. i’m thankful for butterflies, which i associate with every experience that i love. i’m thankful that butterflies are also a part of a lot of experiences i don’t love, because their presence makes me feel alive.

i’m thankful that i’ve read this letter every day for a very long time and wish i knew my own friends as well as i feel like i know justin. i’m thankful i started reading when justin was working his university job, when i was coming down from the most stressful work role i’ve ever put myself through. i’m thankful that in the months that followed, when i was losing hours procrastinating simple tasks like getting the mail, that i began comparing his life to mine, and started unearthing aspects of my life that were hidden to me. i’m thankful that i slowly came to realize that my appetite for reading basically anything about anxiety might indicate that i was not feeling that great.

i’m thankful that justin taught me that my writing does not have to impress anyone. i’m thankful for justin’s dedication to writing and articulating his own experience, which i admire both in the abstract and as a form of his self-care. i’m thankful for justin’s frank discussion of anti-depressants and how they’ve helped him. i’m thankful to remember the day i was cooking dinner and crying, feeling desperate and panicky, when I told my partner i was going to ask my therapist about medication. 

i’m thankful to remember the horrible experience i had when i started sertraline, feeling like i was constantly on the cusp of a panic attack, because of the clarity i had—immediately, impossibly, before the medication could’ve really changed anything—like someone had flipped the switch on the white noise box that was always hissing at me. i’m thankful that i saw and felt the anxiety as a disease, a wound, and not a part of me that i was snipping out because i was tired of living. i’m thankful i switched to escitalopram. i took my last dose on my birthday last year and i’m thankful to know that unmedicated living is not superior living. i’m thankful to hope that everyone who feels bad can take steps to feel better, without shame. i’m thankful to hope i will continue to do the same for myself.

i’m thankful to reflect on my writing from when i was feeling the worst and how vibrant and raw its images were. i’m thankful to remember the feeling of writing it, how seasick i was from the ups and downs, how tired i was of crying every time i tried to talk about it.

i’m thankful to look back on that period to contextualize my current anxiety and make it feel less all consuming and permanent, using a pattern of reflection i learned from justin. i’m thankful to be hopeful that my injury will heal. i’m thankful i am not in pain today. i’m thankful for the ritual of rehabilitation. i’m thankful for all i can still do with my body. i’m thankful that my injury is invisible to others because i am really, really done talking about it.

i’m thankful to feel anger, an emotion that was completely inaccessible to me before i confronted my anxiety. i’m thankful to be emotional, to have emotions. i’m thankful to cry at work sometimes.

i’m thankful for the way this letter introduced me to the hilarious corners of twitter.

i’m thankful for the way reading about someone’s inner life on a daily basis soothes me.

i’m thankful for the occasional guest editions of this letter, which reassure me that it’s not just me and justin out here.

i’m thankful that i will continue to be a subscriber for as long as this letter is published.

- red (7/26/18).