just a thought

i've been in boston since june thirteenth. i have had a mini tiny nervous breakdown and a fair amount of anxiety. but it's been five months today that i've been in a situation and a place where i wake up and i am not terrified. i am not crushingly sad. i'm not depressed. life is not a weight on me.

for such a long, long, very long time, i thought that sadness was who i was. i thought i would have to make a life around the fact that everything hurt, all the time, that being alive would simply always ache. i thought if i found enough ways to mock the unhappiness or mask it or ignore it or punish myself for it or, very occasionally, wallow in it, i could get by.

this is the first time in my adult life that i am not just getting by. since i was ten years old. i can't convey how much that means to me in words - i love them passionately and with reckless abandon, but for this task they escape me. i am moving slowly in this town, it's true. but professionally, personally, domestically, even (dare i say?) sartorially: i am thriving. i am so, so proud of myself.

which is not to say i will never be depressed again. i think that would be a bit much to ask and a bit premature to state. but it has been a revelation for me to learn that eventually, it is possible to wake up and repeatedly realize that everything might just turn out okay.