A mild reflection of gratitude

Today, I spent most of the day in bed. I wasn’t terminally depressed. Just irritatingly bereft. Didn’t feel like doing anything. But, late in the day, I cleaned up my apartment.

I put one of my new records on my new turntable and, as I cleared away the rubbish, I looked around at the place. Full of artwork, blue vinyl spinning, clean, warm. Mine.

I remembered my place in Sydney. Empty walls. A place where each weekend was a black hell of endurance, loneliness, and suicidal urges.

I remembered when the only nice thing I owned was a laptop. I remember my abject terror and despair when it would break and I couldn’t afford to fix or replace it.

I remembered how I could never take care of belongings and how I could never take care of myself. Everything was simply a temporary necessity. I was alive simply to eventually die.

I remembered how I never put anything on my walls because I didn’t want people to see me and didn’t have anything I wanted to express. I remembered wearing only blues and blacks.

I remembered the first time I lived by myself in Sydney and how I felt such profound, overwhelming relief at simply having a bed and six months of employment and stability.

Once upon a time, I had very little. Once upon a time, I wanted only oblivion and anonymity. I didn’t want anyone to see me or know me. I didn’t want to hear anything inside myself.

Tonight, in the midst of a pandemic, I looked around and saw myself reflected back at me. I saw it in the art I’d put on my walls. I heard it in the female punk music on the vinyl.

I looked at my washing. All the colourful patterns and dresses. Later, I drove in my car and remembered not driving for over ten years. Thinking I’d never own a car.

I got some fast food. The attendant called me Miss, even though I was unshaven and messy. Just saw me as a woman. I remembered when I never believed that’d happen.

There are many, many terrible and challenging things going down in the world. Some of them in my life. But, man, even against that backdrop, I am so astonishingly grateful.

I am so happy to be here. I am so glad to be alive. To be who I am, to have what I have, to know who I know, to love who I love, and to feel what I feel.

Even (or especially) in an age of survival and struggle, life is miraculous.

Thought I’d share x