Dear Depression

You were wrong and I want to thank you.

Thank you for the countless midnights I wept, lungs hollowed and voice scratching and hoarse, flickering in and out at the fear that I would never be loved by anything.

Not even by myself.

Thank you, because now I find myself in a love so bright, so warm that it’s stronger than the sun hung by string that I used to shut out through my blinds, in a time when days blend into each other and dates were meaningless.

This love now cradles me in a warmth I haven’t felt for centuries and I no longer desire to sleep through eternity, only through the night.

In those old dreams, greyed and dulled, I had always felt that they were so much better than the reality I was cast in. I felt in control for the first time while you and I slept. I never wanted to wake.

Those monochrome dreams have turned a beautiful rose-colored hue and I am in love.

This love is not one of a fiery passion, it doesn’t burn, but it’s soft and willing.

It’s the promise of better days and thoughts that I am worth the effort and that I’m something to live for.

I have found this love in myself and heartbreak will not be coming anytime soon.

Thank you for the days I trudged through thick fogs apathy and misanthropy, rope tied around my wrist so I wouldn’t lose myself even though I wandered in circles.

These mists have cleared up and I have found the path to follow,

It may not be paved with gold but it’s a path, one that I’m willing to travel down.

You have kept me blind for so long that now I know to cherish my glasses and to take in the world.

I have now found meaning in things I didn’t believe existed

Self-validation and contentedness were grouped together with unicorns and dragons once upon a time, in a land that only saw the sun on the rarest of days.

Flowers are beginning to bloom there and they are radiant, a sign that life will thrive and that nobody will pluck them from their roots again.

Thank you for being the weeds, choking and wild, rampaging the gardens.

Thank you because I can now take the pleasure in ripping you out of my life, yanking with reckless abandon and view the fruits of my labor.

I can now reap what I sow, and let me tell you, I have never seen anything more beautiful.

These rope burns that bound me are now replaced with forget-me-nots, a reminder that I will take with me.

That I will survive you.

That I will continue to grow through the worst of droughts and the darkest of times.

So, thank you. Thank you because I have found my own worth and the feeling of dragging myself up from the rock bottom into the shining light. Thanks to you, I am stronger than ever.

Yours truly,

Someone who has flourished into something better