Probably one of the most touching gifts I have ever received came from the girls at my bachelorette party, in what is quite probably one of the weirdest things @only-in-movies and the other two who knew I was suffering with illness have ever had to explain to other people.

They gave me spoons.

The year before I found myself using the spoon theory, to explain to close friends, what exactly was going on in my life, and why I was failing as a friend. They nodded and sympathized, but I never expected them to in turn try and explain it to other people so I wouldn’t have to.

I won’t lie, on the day of my party I was in agony. I was living with an undiagnosed gallbladder problem and multiple other issues which would later turn out to be autoimmune related, and all I wanted to do was stay in bed and try to get through another day without crying. 

But this was my party, and a lot of effort had gone into it. So I dosed myself with painkillers until I was only mildly lucid, pulled on my steampunk corset and forced myself to smile and party with my friends, who that day included Cat Woman, the TARDIS, several incarnations of Steampunk Star Wars and Wonder Woman. 

If you’ve never had a picnic in a cinema, and I mean an actual picnic, with sandwiches and fruit and cream cakes, then you’re missing out. We watched Iron Man 3, and because it was early morning we were the only ones in there and it was acceptable to crack inappropriate jokes and pass around a flask of tea. Later on we went bowling and I caused a bit of a scene when I whisked my corset off, but I was beyond caring at that point. My pain medication was wearing off and I was resorting to alcohol to keep myself numb enough to carry on with the day.

I liked to think no one noticed—at least I hoped no one noticed—the way I was forced to sit and kept bracing myself every time I moved. I was very careful about always smiling, about laughing about appearing to not be in pain. 

All the while feeling guilty for wishing it would end so I could go home and lie down.

Afterwards we went to dinner in a casino, which was lots of fun and we played lots of Q&A games where I traumatized my friends by answering the sex questions with forthright bluntness. If you’re going to ask me my favorite sex position in the hopes of embarrassing me, you’d best be prepared to sit through an explanation involving diagrams drawn on napkins. At some point after that I excused myself, went to the bathroom and used the time to steady myself, dousing myself in cold water and just generally trying to psyche myself up to keep going for the rest of the night while fearing I might pass out soon from pain alone. When I came back, my friends were waiting on me, solemn faced and a little bit uneasy looking. 

That’s when they gave me the spoons.

You can’t really see it, and unfortunately I don’t have a better picture nor the mental or physical capacity to dig them out of the moving box I know them to be in, but every spoon has a message on it. 

“So you’ll never run out of spoons!” and “here have one of mine!” made me smile. But there were others which nearly ended my carefully crafted facade of functionality and happiness. Spoons that simply said “I love you” and “you don’t have to do this alone”, and one in particular that brought tears to my eyes:

“You Are Enough.”

It’s an odd sensation, to be devastated by gratitude and love. To feel as though your chest is caving in, not from misery, but from the sheer weight of the relief which has descended around your shoulders like an anchor, pulling you back into yourself. Even odder to look up at your friends, dressed as they are as superheroes, and know that your biggest secret identity isn’t needed anymore. You no longer have to pretend to be yourself, because you can at last be yourself.

We went home not long after that, and I was carefully pulled into the back of a taxi where I leaned back and let two of my oldest friends hold me on either side, as though somehow they were keeping me whole by wrapping their arms around me. When the time came to get out of the taxi I was so exhausted I could barely stand, which my father mistook for drunkenness and deftly handed me off to the care of my soon to be husband, who undressed me, washed my face and gently poured me into bed and then later held my hair back while I sobbed with exhaustion in between vomiting up my insides, and he took care me of, as he has done ever since. 

I went to work the following Monday, where I was berated for being useless and lazy by my sociopath boss, and got through the week running up to the wedding by sheer force of will alone. All the while carrying a spoon in my pocket.

“You Are Enough.”

Last year, after I moved to the USA and left my friends behind, much to my continued feeling of loss, I received a package in the mail form @only-in-movies and the other two, who had previously arranged the spoon messages. It was more spoons, beautiful old silver spoons crafted into the form of a wind chime, dazzling and bright in the sunlight, with the purest chiming sound.

I hung it in my work room, a little eccentric reminder that even though I am a spoonie, a little bit bent and a little bit odd, I still have a purpose, I can still be pleasing, I can still elicit joy, even when I’m broken and can’t do the thing everyone expects of me, I can still do something else, and am reminded of this every time the wind blows.

But mostly I am reminded, I am enough.

And just in case no one has said it to you yet: so are you.

“#asktylervalentines @ tyleroakley write us a love poem”

Josh Dun & Tyler Joseph of Twenty One Pilots at the 59th Annual Grammy’s

• scooby said ‘’ruh roh’’ 
• shaggy said ‘’zoinks’’
• velma said ‘’jinkies’’
• daphne said ‘’jeepers’’