This Close To Okay

by Leesa Cross-Smith

Tallie doing something small like that made him feel loved. The costumes, the food—someone else was taking control, even about tiny decisions.

As excellent and efficient as a Target run—everything she needed in the right place, and occasionally there was an extra treat on clearance, making the whole trip more than worth it.

Depression was a vacuum that sucked out everything—leaving nothing behind except the burdening weight of nothingness.

So much of therapy was practicality and giving people a much-needed pass to relax when they needed to or be weird when they needed to. To free their minds from doing what they felt like they should be doing if it always went against what they wanted to do.

After love, forgiveness is the strongest glue holding every family together.