Our Garland of Letters.

For the letter “G“, and Gratitude.

I have one week, seven days, until I turn 31 years old.

Last year I let my twenties slip into obscurity, ushered in my thirties, and tried to understand what it was to let go. I remember sitting in an empty hotel room by myself, early on a Sunday morning after a night of dancing. I was listening to the sirens in the city as the night slowly faded from dark to dawn. I thought of everything I was trying to leave behind and of the places I was scrambling to be; of how all of these things I thought I understood about myself, made so little sense, how I desperately wanted that in the future. A better understanding of myself.

[Every 23 days your voice tells me "Wake up birthday girl, it's nine o'clock, happy birthday." For almost two years, every 23 days, I listen to this message. Sometimes I expect it, sometimes I forget, and I don't. I have to stop what I'm doing and sag. Today I heard it while leaving the garage at school. My finger hovered over the button meant to erase it, stopped, and pressed "Save" instead. Another 23 days. I'm a failure. I figure, at some point, I'll be able to press "Erase" and be free of it, be free of you, be really done with the past. It's the last step in letting go, the hardest step.]

Gratitude. One thought for each of these seven days:

I’m glad I saved that message, that one part of you I never threw away, the part I refused to let go of; it reminds me why I kept you so close for so long, despite everything that was so wrong. Between tears it makes me smile, reminds me that there were good, valuable, decent parts in you, even when I cursed you and the things you did.

I feel like gratitude is this, finding good in the hardest of places, in the hardest of people, and being thankful for it; something of worth nestled in amongst the hurt and pain.