Happy Thanksgiving - A Long Overdue Gratitude Letter

Thanksgiving is not a day that I normally celebrate, as neither the tradition nor that part of the history necessarily resonates with me.

Yet, reflecting and expressing gratitude is something that is close to my heart.

So each year, while many are caught up in the Black Friday sales frenzy, I take this time to contemplate and acknowledge the people who have touched my life and left a mark, for whom I am deeply grateful.

My expressions of thanks have taken various forms over the years – sometimes I shared them through public posts, other times, I wrote letters that materialised into videos packaged with melancholy music and scrolling display. But most often, they quietly slipped into people’s inboxes and messages, or discretely joined the collection of my private journal.

This year, I am penning a letter of gratitude to someone that I have been owing the act of thanking for a long, long time. I am usually a very appreciative person, but somehow everything this person had done was taken for granted. Their unwavering responsibility, consistent effort, love and care have always been there, yet I minimised their significance, always expecting more without due acknowledgment. It felt like all the responsibilities were a given, all the efforts were downplayed, all the love and tenderness were undervalued. That person, is me.

This year is special. I have never felt so grounded. Content, settled, happy.

This is not to say that life is without challenges. But the physical and mental space I am in, I feel an overwhelming appreciation of nearly everything. The smell of hot coffee every morning; the comfort of my bed, with the mattress and duvet forming a cosy nest which is always hard to leave; the spacious flat which I don’t have to share with anybody. The skills and experience that I acquired in an industry that I stumbled into, the people I’ve had the privilege to work with and learn from, the job opportunities that had fallen on my doorstep. Calling London home - the convenience and accessibility of living in a charming metropolis; the abundance of theatre shows and art events that indulge my artistic cravings; the easy connection with the rest of the world, even the most remote corners on the other side of the planet. The friendships that I was able to form over the years, the love and support I receive, especially when I most need them. My skin, my teeth, my eyes and limbs, my imperfect body - something that I used to have way too much criticism and way too little acceptance or love for.

Thinking back, however, I was in pieces just a little over a year ago. My relationship at the time went through a long stretch of painful attempts of reconciliation, giving me glimpses of hope before crashing down to complete destruction, leaving me shattered. I hit rock bottom. I had never experienced such emotional turmoil to the extent that it had not only affected my mental health but also my physical wellbeing. I lost appetite completely, which had almost never happened before. My weight, which had been unbelievably stable over the last decade, came crashing down like a stone thrown out of the window. I lost so much weight that I went back to what I had before high school.

I later realised that this traumatising experience was not about grieving losing this man. It was not even about losing the love that I thought I had. It was about the love that I put in. For the first time in my life I had decided that against all odds I was going to make this work. I really wanted it to work. I had decided that I would choose to love this man despite the clear red flags and alarm bells from my intuition. It was a mistake, of course. But I learned my lessons.

And it was an important lesson.

I had lost myself in this relationship. I was blinded and deafened by what looked and sounded like love. I had given up on things that I shouldn’t have had to compromise. I was living through manipulations without recognising them. Love-bombing and guilt-tripping eroded my trust in my judgement and values. Gaslighting had me question my own perception and reality, leaving me utterly devastated and confused. Verbal and physical violence were downplayed as merely a triggered response. And covering everything with an overarching excuse of “bad communication” minimised the misalignment deeply embedded in two people’s core value systems. It was a painful and traumatic experience, but I am glad to have found my way back, with the supporting network of friends and family.

The healing process was a steep curve, and surprisingly it didn’t last too long. I could see that I was growing stronger with each occurrence of such devastating heartbreak. More resilient, more clarity on who I am. One thing stayed with me in this healing process. It was something I realised - I remember the moment when I was sulking at the loss and suddenly I had this epiphany, and suddenly the world became brighter -

“Hey, I was the cool person in the relationship! I was the instigator of the various adventures. I was the one that orchestrated the numerous trips, experiments, projects that I thoroughly enjoyed! I am the one with the wild ideas and effective execution! I was the author of the eyes-watering, heart-warming, hope-inspiring letters that captured the love, joy and emotional journey we went through. It is his loss that I am no longer in this relationship. Because I can still orchestrate the adventures, the stories that I want to live. I am the main character of my story, and I am totally in charge of writing that story.”

It was a lightbulb moment, and I revisited this conclusion several times since. I am going to live my story, and I will not let anyone else take away that right.

I had a special session with my therapist today. Unplanned, it happened to be the first time we met for an in-person session. The fifteenth session. 26 weeks, with fifteen hours of concentrated introspection and deep digging scattered in between. Sometimes it’s enlightening, sometimes it’s revisiting difficult memories, sometimes it felt like it’s not going anywhere. She asked me how it has been for me. I did an executive style summary. And then I said, there are two things that stayed with me: “Stay with it for a moment longer” and “What if YOU choose this time”.

It reminded me of this concept I came up with once and shared with a friend: time is not linear. We continue to live on minute by minute, and time passes by at the same speed no matter what we do, but when we look back, we realise that time is not linear when we inspect our experiences and growth, when we reflect on the richness of our lives. Sometimes for a long period of time we grind on, feeling as if nothing is really happening. And some other times, we know that life is happening, condensed into one encounter, one conversation, one adventure, one initiative, one soul-shaking collision, and there and then, we are being reshaped, for good.

I made a trip back to my hometown last month. A home that I hadn’t returned in many years, a home that’s been far away from my heart for more than a decade. Being back with my family and the local network, listening to my parents’ companions debate on topics that I am not interested in, and silently accepting as much judging and lecturing they have for me as I could possibly stomach, I suddenly realised how far I have come. Not just in the sense that I went from a Chinese small-town girl who was too intimidated to say a word when I see a “foreigner” at our local KFC, to an opinionated leader that can stand on the Key Stage of a conference room in Midtown Manhattan in New York City chairing a workshop with senior executives and industry pioneers. More importantly, I went from an insecure, depressed little girl full of self-deprecating thoughts and beliefs struggling to find my footing in a forever critical environment, to a more wholesome woman that knows to be gentle with herself, feels comfortable in her own skin, decides to live authentically despite disapprovals, and accepts and embraces the insecurities and imperfections that make her the one and only Bingqian.

I want to thank her, for being steadfast in the ups and downs of the journey of “becoming”, for daring to be a bold and independent thinker even when the headwind is strong. For her courage and persistence in the pursuit of truth including defining who she is only to break those very definitions, for evolving but never compromising the core beliefs and principles that she holds true for life, for pressing on despite the let-downs and heartaches, for not giving up on love.

I want to thank her for looking after herself. For all the restorative evenings when she chose to stay in and recharge, and for the energising relationships she chose to nurture as much as the depleting ones she chose to leave.

I want to thank her for choosing love and tenderness. The unconditional love, though hard, that she is trying her best to learn and provide. And each day, she learns a little more. It's a path paved with challenges, yet she perseveres, in this ongoing journey of understanding the true depths of her own heart.

Thank you for being the hero in my life.

Thank you for cherishing life with all its vibrancy.

Thank you for trying to be courageous instead of perfect.

Thank you for embracing what came your way with the most comprehensive perspective you can acquire and the most spirited energy you can muster.

Thank you for always finding the way back to yourself.

I love you.