After several surgeries, I was pretty gloomy in 2012. Thanks to a criminally bad doctor writing a letter without my permission or knowledge, I’d just lost my job. I was struggling with adjusting to my second set of after-market parts installed where I used to have bones, a gigantic red scar, and the aftermath of way too much medication. How to reconnect to the world?

I hit on writing Thank You letters to the people who’d helped me. I went high, I went small. I dug up every person I could think of. It made my days bigger than what I had been doing: lying on my bed, scared to move and watching it get dark/light/dark.

My favorite fallback phrase? “Thank you for helping me.”

And it worked! I felt stronger and started thinking I could rejoin the world.

Lots of stuff broken all around us. It still makes people happy to say thank you for helping me.

Be well.