The Day Before Thanksgiving

aka: The Softest Plot Twist

Day 3 — November 26, 2025

Today is quiet. Not tragic quiet. Not ominous quiet. Just quiet in a way that feels almost suspicious, like my nervous system finally took a nap without sending me a calendar invite. Something in the air shifted.
Something in me shifted. It’s like part of my insides softened overnight without asking for permission. Which is rude, because I like to be warned before emotional growth happens.

I didn’t make plans. I didn’t hunt for company. I didn’t force myself to act festive or pretend I had the energy for a holiday I’m barely emotionally RSVP’d to. I just let myself choose solitude without guilt.

And honestly? It felt delicious.

I made coffee and actually tasted it. Like a human with a functioning presence. I let the morning light sit on my face without rushing it away. I didn’t scroll myself into oblivion. I didn’t apologize for needing space, which is VERY off-brand for the old me. And for reasons I cannot explain, gratitude kept showing up like an uninvited houseguest with surprisingly good intentions.

This year has been one of the hardest of my life. Top three, easily. And yet there I was, feeling grateful in these small, almost tender ways that didn’t feel performative or forced or like some Pinterest-approved emotional exercise. Just real, simple, and mine.

Grateful that I’m still here. Grateful that I chose myself on Monday. Grateful that I didn’t run, physically or spiritually. Grateful that people exist who genuinely care whether I’m okay. Grateful for this strange spark inside me that keeps trying to reignite itself like a lighter that refuses to die.

I wandered around my apartment picking up comforting things. A candle, a blanket, a plant that is somehow thriving despite my life being a plot twist generator and somewhere in all of that, I realized something:

I’m starting to feel myself again. Not fully. Not loudly. But distinctly. Like hearing your own name whispered from another room. There is still fear. There is still waiting. There is still a heaviness hanging out in the corner, refusing to identify itself. But there’s also this shift.

Today I chose myself again. Quietly. Gently. With a fragile kind of steadiness that didn’t feel like pretending. It felt like healing. A small one. But real.

And honestly? That might be the first miracle I’ve allowed myself in a year.

Because somewhere between the coffee, the quiet, the wandering, and the unexpected gratitude sneaking in through the cracks, something in me remembered itself.

Not in a dramatic, cinematic way. No phoenix rising. No choir singing. Just a small flicker of recognition. A tiny whisper of, “Hey… I’m still in here.”

And that whisper? I felt it. I believed it.

I’m not back yet. Not fully, not loudly, but I’m returning. Piece by piece. Breath by breath. Moment by moment that I let be soft instead of terrifying.

So tonight, on the eve of a holiday that used to demand so much from me, I’m letting this be enough.

The quiet, the gentleness, the spark, the subtle unfurling of the girl I thought I’d lost.

Chaos in one hand.
Grace in the other.
And me finally hearing myself again.