This Year
On sustenance for liberation
This year was the first year in a while that I was excited to celebrate my birthday, and this year it wasn’t only because I wanted to spend time with loved ones, though I hoped to enjoy that this year. This year I needed to celebrate.
This year I didn’t just want time in community. I didn’t just want to feel joy. I didn’t just want to laugh and play and be silly. I didn’t just want to sit at a table and share food & drinks with friends. I didn’t just want to gather with friends, knowing they came just to spend time with me. Just to celebrate me existing, with me. This year I needed all those things.
This year I needed all those things to balance the weight of a genocide against my people. I feel that weight each day, and each day it manages to get heavier.
Each day I read about actions occurring that strip transgender people of their rights. Each day I feel the privileges I have in those actions having yet to directly affect me. Each day I wonder about and worry over the people who are directly affected. Each day I struggle to stay empowered as I fret over what I can personally contribute. I feel frustrated by my limitation, I look for opportunities that are a fit for me. I feel deeply that my art and these essays are something in my control which I have to offer. Each day I journal my thoughts and work on my drawings when I can. These are things I can give, which also nourish me. Each day I practice these things for my mind and my soul and whenever I can I skate on my quads for my mind, soul, and body. These things go a long way to sustain me and still this year I need to be in the presence of my community. So this year, the excitement to celebrate my birthday had a different tone. This year it was a necessity rather than a luxury, while also a privilege.
Each day I think about the people feeling isolated, sometimes siloed away from community. Each day I think about those we will lose, those we have already lost. Each day I do my best to help minimize how many people, how many individuals, are lost to this genocide. Taking some comfort, knowing that we cannot be erased, as more of us are born each day. Never forgetting how compulsory cisheteronormativity, lack of a mirror, and lack of elders can be barriers to knowing ourselves. I remember experiencing that to a degree myself. This year celebrating is an act of reverence for all those souls who may be lost. Honoring all lost lives by living my own life. This year I choose joy in the face of oppression. I choose joy over worry of what is to come. This year I choose joy, to fuel myself for survival. This year I choose joy, to sustain myself for the path to liberation.