'I'm Still Learning How To Live!'

'I am grateful for their forgiveness as I try again and again and again.'

Garden (1985) by Dorothea Tanning

This week I want to focus on gratitude. If you have something — or a bunch of things — you’re grateful for, please send a letter to askpolly@protonmail.com and I’ll publish a new one each day this week.

Dear Polly,

First of all, I'm so grateful to you. Before I had much of a sense of self to rely on I borrowed your guiding light. I first read your answer to a letter from "eating rotten cabbage leaves.” I was 19 years old and I felt really lost, like things were too late or too broken to fix back then. But the original letter author was five years older than me and you gave them this mantra:

I AM VERY YOUNG AND I AM STILL LEARNING HOW TO LIVE.

It's five years later. That's still my mantra. I'm grateful for those words. They've opened up a self-forgiving journey for me. I am a beautiful baby, I am a sharp sharp knife in a drawer, I am real and I am trying and I am me and I am enough.

I am grateful for the technological advancements that have put a computer in my hand so I can read your words and talk with my good friends across the world. I am grateful for friends who don't get too annoyed when I share your essays again, every time one gets me choked up. I am grateful for the apps that stop me from wasting literally half my life on this stupidly addicting magical box. I am grateful for my parents' income being low enough to keep me out of college student debt but high enough to keep us us fed — I am grateful for the government programs that helped us with both of those things. I am grateful to live in a country that provides so well for its people even if many complain, even if it isn't perfect, even if it's at the expense of people in other countries. I know my gratitude doesn't fix anything there, but I am grateful anyway.

I am grateful for my youth. I am grateful for my good physical health. I am grateful for my job and its surprisingly good health insurance. I am grateful for my therapist who among other things has taught me how to be mindful — mindfulness is so close to gratefulness, for me. I am aware of the magic of getting to exist on this planet and I weep because I am grateful for the privilege of it, to exist at all.

I am grateful to my mother for creating me, and for doing her best to raise my sister and me when things were rough. I am grateful for my sister even when I feel so annoyed by her. I am not the best daughter or sister, I am not always the kindest, I shut down when I get hurt, even when I hurt myself. And I am grateful for their forgiveness as I try again and again and again. I am grateful for every breath, every tomorrow I get. I didn't use to be but I am now and that matters most.

I have tried and failed to write you a letter many times over the last few years. I was never able to condense things down to a singular theme. That's part of why I'm in therapy now, you've suggested it to people who have so much going on or have really deep-seated incorrect ideas about themselves. This finally feels right. Thank you for the chance to share. I hope you are doing well. I hope the messages you get from me and everyone else are healing to your soul.

Best,

Crying and Trying

Dear Crying and Trying,

Your gratitude represents a huge accomplishment. After years of convincing yourself that you’re unworthy or inadequate, it’s incredibly uncomfortable to forgive yourself and to give yourself space to be what you are. To write “I am a beautiful baby”? That takes daring, empathy, pride, and a kind of shamelessness that insists on the truth, insists on beauty itself, and refuses to be broken by this broken world and its broken stories.

Your words embody how gratitude shapes reality.

I’m proud of you for arriving here at such a young age. It’s thrilling to read the words of someone who completely gets it, knows that they’re onto something big, celebrates that knowledge, and doesn’t back down from it. I think I write this column because I have an tendency to back down, slide away, wander, lose the thread repeatedly. Ask Polly — and also Ask Molly — remind me of what’s important. In contrast, I have the sense that you’re very good at ingesting the truth and then honoring the people around you in accordance with that truth. That’s a great quality, and I’m grateful to witness it.

Although I’m glad to hear the words “I am very young and I am still learning how to live” worked so well for you when you read them, I think today I’d take out any reference to age and make it:

I AM STILL LEARNING HOW TO LIVE.

Because we’re all still learning how to live, at every age. We all get to take our time. We all get to try and fail, over and over again.

I admire your humility and how hard you work to do your best, every single day. Just remember not to be too tough on yourself. You never really have to condense anything down to a single theme. Most of our stories have endless layers and muddled meanings, and that’s what makes them so rich and engrossing. The stringent rules you set for yourself are often unnecessary. You can just be free and experiment with an open heart and you’ll learn from it. You have conviction, generosity, principles, and courage. What an amazing combination of traits! Thank you for sharing all of yourself with all of us.

Love,

Polly

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Thank you for reading. I published the letter mentioned above here in case anyone wants to read it. Send your gratitude letters to askpolly@protonmail.com. Remember that this day wants to skin your knees and then kiss you like a lover. Why not let it?