I remember in the summer sometime, I think June, this girl pressured me to go to her Catholic youth minister for “counseling.” She and I were sitting on the brick front porch shortly before going in for the meeting. The youth ministry building was once a nun house in a generation before ours. I just remember holding out our forearms to show each other. We traced the pads of our fingertips across our own scabs and scars and across each other’s. Her scars were white and thicker and deeper. She used to cut with glass shards and razor blades. My scars were thin and shallow and brown. I cut with blades from a pencil sharpener. We cut because we were so mentally sick. It works. If you have never had to inflict pain on yourself to drown out the brain pain, you are the lucky person in this world. Anyway, I just think what a scene we were that day. The sun was setting. It was warm and not too humid in small-town Michigan. The trees and grass were a deep green and blooming. We were on the front porch of a beautiful catholic cathedral. We had homes and families and an education; we were young and beautiful and talented, and there we were: marveling in the beauty of each other’s scars. We were just admiring our works of art on our wrists, forearms, shoulders and thighs. We were living in that moment and experiencing the joy of having feelings. We were remembering the sad days and laughing about the good ones. We were alive. That’s the most important part. Any one of the handfuls of pills we had taken in the months prior could have killed us, but there we were, and here we are: still sick, but still living.