thank you notes (L)(3)
Iām thankful for S & J, who consistently surprise me with their material kindnesses and friendship, particularly since on a basic level they are āa guy I met through a podcast fandom communityā and āthe boyfriend of that guy I met through a podcast fandom community, years after the relevant podcast endedā and I am just a girl who used to live in their neighbourhood. Iām thankful for their enthusiasm and heart emojis and capital-lettered exclamations of joy every time I tell them Iām coming to their city for a trip, even if sometimes we are all working so we donāt get to see each other anyway. Iām thankful for their love for each other, which is so expressive in myriad small ways which could be cheesy but somehow isnāt, because you know they really, really mean it. Iām thankful that J introduced me to the concept of Chemex coffee, so that every time I go to the hipster cafĆ© near work to drink some, I think of J and, by extension, S.
Iām thankful for my academic pal gang, who are so kind to me even though we are scattered throughout the world (Iām thankful for Twitter & Slack), and although we maybe meet in various configurations once a year. Iām thankful for opportunities they give me, for the support we can give each other, the way we are each trying to be the changes we want to see in the world, the way we can lift each other up and keep each other going because sometimes, this stuff is just hard and it would be much harder on my own. Iām thankful that they all persist in including me even though I often feel like the impostor in the group. Iām thankful for the small and not so small gestures that show they include me in their gang, even if I worry Iām not good enough to be there.
Iām thankful for C and how we are so alike in some ways and so different in others and how this makes us such a good team (even though we would never admit it to each other because that would be weird and emotional and we donāt do emotional). Iām glad I can tell her to get the fuck on with scary things and she can tell me to get the fuck on with scary things and generally, we do.
Iām thankful for Work From Home by Fifth Harmony, because I heard it today and I thought āhey, this band is like the new Destinyās Childā and once I had conceded that they were in fact not that good I put Destinyās Child on instead and remembered how good DC actually were. Iām thankful to remember how mundanely obvious songs like Independent Women and Survivor seemed when I was 14 --like, duh, surely being a *powerful woman* was easy and would definitely get easier- and to realise how wrong I was and how important empowering narratives are in popular culture, particularly by women. Iām thankful for how Independent Women doesnāt qualify its message but is plain and strong: āDepend on no one else to give you want you wantā.Ā Iām thankful that today, the shoe on my feet, I bought it; the clothes Iām wearing, I bought it; (I depend on me).
Iām trying to be thankful for my anxiety which seems an odd thing to say. Iām thankful that one of my coping strategies is basically saying ājust do the fucking thingā internally because I know that the process of build up to anxious situations is worse for me than the thing itself and once I get there I will be ok at least for a few hours and then itās ok to go home/ stop. Iām thankful that being an adult gives me the freedom to choose whether to avoid triggers or confront them and to accept that Iām not just making this shit up. Iām thankful that avoiding a stupid minor thing which is a major trigger for me - because of childhood conditioning mainly but also other things outside my control- has worked pretty well for a few years. Iām thankful I felt secure enough to try doing the stupid minor thing again today for the first time since 2010ish. Iām not really thankful that it didnāt go well, to be honest. I was 75% expecting to emerge victorious, one more thing conquered, but perhaps predictably it didnāt work out and I ended up feeling exactly like I always did in this situation, mainly really disappointed in myself and all my life choices up to this point. Iām thankful that Adult Me can move on more easily and not think about stuff for days on end. Iām thankful that our office was empty on a Saturday afternoon so I could cry into my lunch in peace.
Iām thankful that in the last couple of years I have become much more kind to myself, trying to accept the things I cannot change and to work against those things I can try to change (basically: fight the patriarchy, and the diet industry is a lie) Iām thankful to have had space to think through my anxiety and work out that I have always been anxious (my first clear memory is feeling anxious in exactly the same way I did today. This should probably have been a clue); to work out *why* I am anxious- I didnāt have a particularly traumatic childhood or anything but conditioning is a weird thing- to solidify some coping mechanisms and to accept that I will probably always have anxiety and that is ok. Itās not a moral failing.Ā
Iām thankful that my anxiety doesnāt affect my day-to-day life in a massive way and Iām thankful that no one really knows about it but me. Itās a lonely road but Iām getting there.
Iām thankful for this exercise of thank you notes since it forces me to reframe experiences as positive even if they seemed very un-positive at the time. Iām thankful to have this framing device even if I donāt actually write the majority of them down. It reminded me of a recent agony column I saw online, not in the context of suicide or breakup or lack of structure but this part:
āAs long as you imagine that the outside world will one day deliver to you the external rewards you need to feel happy, you will always perceive your survival as exhausting and perceive your life as a long slog to nowhere. Instead, you have to savor the tiny struggles of the day: The cold glass of water after a long run. The hot bath after hours of digging through the dirt. The satisfaction of writing a good sentence, a good paragraph. You MUST feel these things, because these aren't small rewards on the path to some big reward; these tiny things are everything. Savoring these things requires tuning in to your feelings, and it requires loving yourself instead of shoving your nose into your own question marks hour after hour, day after day.ā
Because itās true. It works on good days- āIām having a great day and wow look at the colour of the sky/that cute dog/ my sandwich has extra gherkins in it, score!ā and bad- āIām failing at everything and I suck but at least I saw a nice flowerbed today/ it stopped raining/ I ate some really nice cheeseā. Tiny victories mount up, not into one big reward, but a carpet of small things, like a ballpool, that supports me when itās hard to keep on going.Ā
Iām thankful for the Bill Clinton/Bob Dole episode of The Simpsons, where Alien Bill Clinton declares:
We must move forward, not backwards
Upward, not forward
And always twirling
Twirling
Twirling towards freedom
Thatās as good a description for life as any. Twirling towards freedom.
- L (4/24/16)