Dear 2020,

You have been the year of bad fucking breakups and shit luck.
You have been the year of challenges and disruptions and obstacles.
You have been the year of “if it can go wrong then it will”.
You have been an endless, unstoppable bulldozer of a year.
You have been the year of anxiety, panic, and fear.
You have been the year of a loss of control on a mass scale.
You have been the year of pushing me beyond my limits over and over,
And discovering I’m a lot more resilient than I give myself credit for.

2020, you have taken and taken and taken,
And what you have given has been less obvious,
But it’s what I will carry with me into the next year.
I’ve been telling myself to let go of what I cannot control,
Not an easy feat for someone like me,
But that is what you come down to, 2020:
The stark reality of everything I cannot control.
You have wiped away illusion after illusion after illusion,
Exposing the magician that is me.

2020, I can’t keep track of my griefs anymore.
They weave, white wisps of thread, throughout my body.
Each one connected to my heart and branching out in its own unruly direction.
My mother says I need to grieve, but which hurt do I tend to first?
Which thread do I begin to weave?

2020, you have been a gift,
A terrible, smelly gift in ugly wrapping paper,
A gift I did not want nor ask for,
But a gift nonetheless.
You have shown me where my limits really are.
You have shown me reality, exposed the illusionists.
You have shown me friends and family who care about me.
You have shown me what I cannot control, yes, but also, what I can.
My flaws have been laid bare before me by you,
And the flaws of others just seem so fucking human too.

2020, you have worn me down, beaten me up, and made me cry,
But you have also prepared me to take on 2021,
And I’m a better fighter than when this year had just begun.

2020, I’m grateful for what you have given and even for what you have taken.
I’m ready to say goodbye to you and move into a new year
With bruises and bloody knuckles and a little less fear.
No, this broken and unruly heart contains hope,
Hope that this will be a better year.

After

Photograph of a glowing yellow outline of a heart hanging in a window with window panes in front of it. Outdoor window frame with a dusting of snow around the window. It is dark outside and all illumination comes from the heart.

I’m on a date and it’s awkward and uncomfortable, but I’m grateful because I get to be around other people and meet a new person. There won’t be a second date, or maybe there will, just because we’ll want an excuse to go out again. That happens a lot these days. I look into this person’s eyes as we speak and I don’t see a potential partner there, no, but I do see a human, and I’m enraptured by the beauty of another human being’s non-pixelated eyes.

I’m at a party and the music isn’t any good and the beer is swill and the people are just okay, but I’m having the best night of my life because I get to be around other people and some of them are new and that is amazing. We’re shouting over the unfortunate music and no one is listening. Our eyes and voices are animated. You’d think we’re all high, but only a few of us are. Someone tells a joke that isn’t very funny and we all fall over laughing.

I’m walking around a mall looking at the pretty lights and colours even though I hate malls, but I’m having such a lovely time because there are people, people everywhere, and I have no reason to be afraid of them now. As I move, I catch bits and pieces of mundane conversations that are made interesting by over a year of isolation. I go into stores and don’t buy anything and the shopkeepers smile and say hello. I get an ice-cream cone and sit on a bench in the centre of it all and breathe in the stale air with a sigh of gratitude.

I get on a bus and then a train and both are delayed, so it takes a long time to get to my destination, but I’m not irritated in the slightest. I’m going somewhere, somewhere I’ve wanted to go for ages. I watch pavement disappear and then I leave tracks behind. The buildings grow taller, taller, taller until they enter the mist. The train arrives at the station and then we must wait to walk down the stairs because of the crowd that pours out. I am overjoyed. The city is a place of fun again, not fear, and I can come here for a day without worrying about fatal consequences.

I’m sitting in a cafe writing and the noise is actually helping me work. It was difficult to find a chair. Lots of people go out for no reason now. The seats are uncomfortable. I’m typing away on my computer. My latte is burnt and lukewarm and delicious. I’m happily writing nonsense. Someone bumps into my table, spilling my drink and disturbing my focus. I love them for it. “Sorry!” They say, reaching out a hand to steady my situation. I smile up at them. They smile back.

Email Template

I select a piece and pick it apart and put it together and click submit and there it is,
at the mercy of the world.

It’s not really what we’re looking for,
but we’re glad you submitted and hope you do so again!
It’s not really what we’re looking for, but it’s good that you found it.
You’re not really what we’re looking for, but we’re glad you exist! Hooray!
There’s probably something you can do with that.
It is what you’re looking for.

You are what you’re looking for
and there isn’t an email template in the world that can take that away.

Quicker Than a Streetcar Can Say Surprise

Content note: this piece contains references to the COVID-19 pandemic.

I miss sitting somewhere in public and writing even though I never did that. I want to go to Fran’s All Night Diner at some ridiculous hour and eat greasy food and pull out my notebook and write about it. I’ll ask if they have decaf and they’ll have to put on a pot and I’ll feel bad, but don’t worry, I’ll drink a lot. The refills are endless. I’ll get through the whole pot. They’ll ask if they should put on another and I’ll say, no, that’s alright, thanks, it’s time to go visit my brother. And they’ll say their shift isn’t up yet. And I’ll say, no, not you, silly, me. It’s time for me to go visit my brother. And they’ll say, oh, yeah, isn’t that that guy who works at the café? Yeah, that’s the one. I’ll get the bill, please. Oh, certainly…You know, I’ve never visited my brother before because of the pandemic. What pandemic? Oh, have we forgotten already? Thank goodness.

Then I’ll be up and outta there, quicker than a streetcar can say surprise. I’ll be crossing that old town at lightning speed just to see the only other redhead for miles. Now that can’t be right, we use kilometres in Canada, but you know what I mean.

I’ll cross that old town and be haunted by its memories, but hey, at least I’ll be there without the fear of catching my death and spreading it. No one will look directly at me because they’ll know I’m not from around there, and I won’t mind one bit. I’ll keep quiet, and we’ll all agree that it’s better they don’t look. But you wait, just wait until I get to my brother’s place because then, I’ll talk. They’ll all talk. Not about anything specific, not about anything that matters, just the kind of talk you use to make everyone feel better. You know the kind. You use it all the time.

I’ll get to my brother’s place, and I won’t have the door code, so he’ll have to buzz me in. The building he lives in is 83 floors tall. It rivals the CN Tower. No, it doesn’t, don’t make me laugh, but the CN Tower is right next door. He’ll buzz me in from above, and I’ll walk into a lobby I’ve never seen. It’ll be unremarkable. Elevator doors will open, and my brother will step out. Where’s the red hair? I’ll wonder. It’ll be dark blue, but he’ll still be my brother.

Would you like some coffee? He’ll ask.

He brings his work home with him (quite literally).

Would you mind putting on a pot of decaf?

What to Cry Over: A Letter to Myself

Curved road, traffic barrier, power lines, and dark naked trees against a foggy sky.

Content note: this piece contains discussion of heteronormativity and references to trauma.

Sometimes people come into your life when you need them and then leave when you don’t.

You might feel like you still need them. Perhaps they created the illusion of need. But you don’t. If they left, it’s because the lesson has been given, and you don’t need them anymore.

I don’t need you, I never did, and my ancestors told me that. Told me as I lay crying on the bathroom floor, heart split open, body suspended over a cold void. NO, they said from deep within, causing me to sit up and listen. You don’t need this one, you never did, and he will not break you. This will not break you.

Cry for yourself, for the part of you that was hurt, for the wounded child. Cry over your broken heart. Cry over the broken promises, the broken trust, the lies, and the duplicity. But don’t cry over the man. The man isn’t worth crying over. The man isn’t worth a second thought. Let him go. Let him recede into the fog.

Cry for your broken-hearted self. Cry for your betrayed child self. Cry for your survivor self. But don’t cry for the man. The man doesn’t care about your tears. The man was never here, not really. The man was never real, not really. The man was a figment of your & his imagination, nothing more than the illusion of presentation. Cry to heal yourself, but don’t shed a tear for someone who wasn’t ever really here, ever really real. The pain is real, but it’s the only thing that’s real. Everything else was an illusion.

Don’t cry for an illusion, cry for the violation. That was the word that came into your mind soon after: violation. When someone lies to you about everything, about who they are, it’s a violation. Cry for the violation. Heal the violation. Don’t cry for the violator.

Heal your broken heart, your frightened child, your survivor. Heal all parts of yourself. Cry over the pain and then transform the pain. Transform it into something else. Growth. Healing. Lessons. Learning. Beauty. Community. Love. Compassion. And then see the pain for what it was: a necessity, a catalyst, something to get you moving, something to get you up and out, something to get you thinking differently, living differently. See the pain as a gift, a gift to get you going, a gift to get you seeking something better, something more, something different.

You are meant to be building community. You are meant to be living in friendship. You are meant to be loving platonically with all your heart. You are meant to be living differently. You are meant to be redefining family. You are meant to be living queerly.

The problem is that you are a queer person who keeps trying to build a heteronormative life, and that just isn’t going to work. You wanted to build a family with a man and a dog, but there were already some men and a dog who are your family right over here. You didn’t have to go out and find that. It was already here.

I want to prioritize and centre platonic love. I want to prioritize and centre community. I want to prioritize and centre romantic love with women and non-binary people. I want to redefine the meaning of family to mean whatever I need it to be. I need to do things differently because I am different, so the heteronormative script isn’t going to work for me. That was the lesson and now I’m here. I’m here where I’m meant to be.

The music is beating and I am typing and I am reading and this place is being. Here and now, now and here. And it’ll all be, it’ll all be, it’ll all be what it’s meant to be. I’ve been given another chance to lift off the shackles of heteronormativity, and I’m going to take it, and I’m not going to look back this time.