Tell Them You’re Grateful

Tell them about

Burnt gas station coffee, canned beans from a dollar store. Brushing your teeth in the rain because the water is out again. Ghost town, Rocky Mountain High.

Letters from home. Why don’t you just go back? You’re not done. One foot in front of the other.

Monstrous laundry piles on the beige carpet. Coffee table strategically placed over a mysterious stain, bed in the closet. Bars on the windows.

They’ll tell you to keep going. You’re lucky you can hear, and be here. Pick yourself up off the bathroom floor. You will fail. You will succeed. The pain will end when

It is done teaching you.

Eating peanut butter out of a jar counts as meal-prep. You’ll burn through everything, including cheap cigarettes.

Chasing sunrises, quitting shit jobs, getting more shit jobs to pay for rent and tattoos. Howling at the Moon, trying to put on weight for warmth in the winter. Joining a gym because they have showers and people. Flashlights on to keep the electric bill low.

Tell them-

Read the damn news. Use more maps. Punch something. Kiss someone. Learn a Universal Language. Be generous with your time. Tip the waitress. Don’t be boring. Learn to cook three things and master them. Love your friends-they will keep you alive. Go on dates. By yourself. Accept defeat. Then start all over again.

Drinking your coffee black is cheap and easy, unlike anything else in your twenties.

Don’t get drunk every night. Or at all. Or do. Only smoke when you need to.

You never need to.

Tell them-

You will be grateful for the mess and uncertainty, one day. Go out in flames, yelling and laughing and not saying sorry. You are not in any competition. This is life. Lift other women up, encourage men to empower.

Lay on the floor, it will ground you. Make friends everywhere. Be your own friend. Grit is admirable, so is asking for help. Yell, spin, run and yell at the city lights. Ride the elevators to the tops of the tallest buildings until you understand that looking down on people is not the answer to happiness.

Steal the Wifi from the hallway. Eat out of a burnt pan on your kitchen counter in your underwear and a bathrobe. Buy yourself a bathrobe.

Hold gratitude safe in your arms and give it away freely. Fall in love with the delicious ambiguity of life.

Tell your children to write their own story, and do not spare the details.