I am grateful for my partner. Having such an emotionally mature person in my life after always living surrounded by emotionally neglectful people has felt like being the first fish to come ashore and discover the entire other half of the world and how much there is left to grow and evolve.

I am grateful for having discovered that I am autistic and having been able to finally put a name to all my difficulties, being able to better understand things from the past and being able to forgive myself for it.

And I am grateful for my job. While it is not the job I expected to have, it is the first job that is within my comfort zone and that also takes my needs into account and makes me feel part of a team and not just another cog.

I am also grateful for the community of little animals that live behind my screen that I have discovered and of which I am a part. I feel that I am increasingly in my element and I feel much more confident in showing myself as I really am.

So many things. I'm thankful for my family who helped raise me into who I am now and continue to support me to this day. I'm thankful for my friends who have stuck by me at my best and at my worst. I'm thankful for my husband who has never given up on me and has made it clear that nothing I ever do will make him stop loving me, and makes me love him just as much simply by existing. They all make life worth living.

I'm thankful for the luxury of running water, the ability to spend my day writing and expressing myself, the relative safety I have of where I live, the electronics I use to communicate with my friends, the cannabis I use to self-indulge.

Despite all the troubles we face in life and the uncertainties we have of the future, I'm thankful to be alive and a part of this world.