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For the most part, I've made peace with having depression. I've accepted that I have this thing living in my mind that delights in trying to convince me to kill myself. I have ways to cope with that. I can repeat its words in the voice of Donald Trump or Mickey Mouse. I can heckle it like it's a bad stand-up comedian. I can make believe that it's a scheming chancellor to whom I must not cede the throne.

But some days, no matter what I do, I halfway believe what it says.

It was one of those days. I don't remember why, exactly, but depression rarely needs a good reason to bother me. I was sitting on the couch, staring at nothing, and waiting for my mug of tea to cool down while depression whined in my ear: What is the point, anyway? Why go on when life will amount to nothing? I had no answer. I blew on the tea to cool it, hoping that drinking it would drown my tormentor.

The tea I drink is marketed, I assume, towards the kind of person who meditates first thing in the morning and keeps those cafes that sell overpriced acai bowls in business. I am not that kind of person. I drink the tea because I like the flavor, not because I swear by the health benefits of ashwaganda—and between caring for a toddler and going to grad school, the most meditative thing I have time for these days is my occasional indulgence in a tea that has some vaguely Eastern-sounding platitude printed on the tag. That day, the tag caught my eye.

The messages are usually meaningless and trite—cliches of fortune cookie caliber like “small surprises may lead to the brightest opportunities” or “joy arrives in unexpected packages.” There's no comfort to be had in them—not usually, anyway.

This one said, “This life is a gift.”

No, it's not, said depression. Look outside, at everything that's wrong with this world, and tell me again that it's a gift.

But I stopped and looked at the tag again. “This life is a gift.”

I thought about it. I thought about the attempt I made on my life when I was sixteen, and all that had happened in the years since then: two graduations, my marriage, my child. I thought of the year I moved across the country and saw spring for the first time—real spring, not just a season of sludge mixed with snow. I thought of the warmth emanating from the tea mug into my hands.

“This life is a gift.”

It wasn't the first time I'd ever been told that. Gratitude is, after all, a nearly universal value and is evidenced to be highly effective against depression. It was, however, the first time I'd ever heard it without hearing the imperative or filling it in with my mind.

I have trouble practicing gratitude without guilt. Well-meaning people use thankfulness as a weapon. “This life is a gift, so don't waste it.” “…so you'd better stop focusing on your troubles.” “…so why are you so depressed?” Like the friends of Job, they say—perhaps not realizing it, or intending to—that if someone is suffering, they must be doing something wrong.

But this time…

It wasn't an expectation, nor a command, nor a compunction. Just a statement, the kind that's written on a birthday card.

“This life is a gift.

Here, it's for you.

What are you waiting for?

Come on! Open it!”