We have to be grateful, he says, so that’s what I do.
I’m so grateful to be home again. So grateful to see the greenery of the countryside again and be around my friends and family again. So grateful to live in my parents’ house again and eat from their table and sleep under the freshly cleaned sheets with the scent of familiar laundry again. So grateful so grateful so grateful.
Positivity to me seems to be
not a survival mechanism,
but a defense mechanism.
I’m so grateful, so I’m not sad at all. I’m so grateful, so my tears don’t stain the pillow at night. I don’t wish I could skip lunch, or eat instant noodles for dinner, or clean up my dishes at a time I decide. I’m so grateful, so I don’t feel empty in my chest, so I don’t feel homesick for a place that never even felt like home. I don’t long for the feeling of being a stranger when I go out for a walk – no, I love being seen, I love being known by all these small-town people with their small-town talks. I only stay in now because the days are getting colder. I’m so grateful, so I’m so fine. Please don’t mind me. I’ll just be inside.
Love,