that familiar snap of my jaw, the one that used to always precede the 'sure, absolutely' before my brain had even finished processing the request, it’s still there sometimes a tiny tremor under the skin, a ghost of a reflex even now that I know what it costs to say yes to everything, it's not the crushing wave anymore, not like it was when my phone was always at 2% and i'd still try to scroll through everyone's problems, but more like a memory of how easily I used to dissolve into someone else's request, that quiet hum in my head like the residual current from an unplugged appliance, still pulling for a second before the real me kicks in and asks 'wait, what did they even say' and that’s progress, isn’t it, to finally hear the question, to finally give myself a chance to actually formulate an answer that isn't just default, a default that almost killed me.