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I really want to be mad at today. I really do. But I’m learning to radically accept what is, and keep moving forward with love.

To recap:

1) I started my day with a less fruitful (than usual) bonus hour of Lyft, which I woke up early for after falling asleep super late (and I only had restless nightmares during sleep).

2) I then shipped over to my mom’s place to take care of her dog so the poor thing wouldn’t have to be in the crate all day. Except my mom didn’t clear a place at the table like she said she would. I was supposed to work at the house while watching the dog, but I couldn’t because I know from experience you DO NOT MOVE my mother’s things without her being present. The whole table was filled to the brim, just like every countertop in the house 🙃

So I pivot and focus on getting Bella a walk. But I can’t find her normal collar and harness anywhere. I call Mom, and she insists the bag with the things is somewhere around. Can’t find it. I get increasingly flustered and frustrated, all while the damn fire alarm’s dead battery keeps making it chirp at odd intervals.

I try taking the alarm down, but it won’t dislodge from the wall. So there’s noise and mess everywhere, I can’t find the dog’s things, and my body is having a hard time coping with being in the house for a multitude of reasons (yay trauma).

3) BAM meltdown. My body is frozen in the front hall, just standing there, wailing. High pitched wails come out of me that I can’t control, my eyes pouring out tears. It’s like I’m there, rattling inside my meatsuit just behind my eyes, witnessing my body do these things, and I have no attachment to them or ability to step into control. Bella is confused and sits with me and starts “crying” too. Which, thankfully, kind of shocks me into a new awareness and I am able to stop myself from wailing like that. Then she starts sitting closer to me so I can keep my hand on her head/back when she moves around. She didn’t understand, but she was such a sweetheart trying to figure out how to help.

We go for a walk which grounds me a little bit. (With the wrong lead and collar, but I needed to make do.)

4) I finally ship off to my friend’s place to work in his office. I’m taking a course by Kieran Rose (the “Inside Autism Series”), so I can be better educated on the identity I hold. And naturally the first “episode” is all about the history of Autism, which is pretty horrific. I make it about halfway through before I need to drive Lyft again. Feeling the pressure, as I only have until January 6th to catch up on the videos.

4.5) I’m gearing up for a trip to MI over NYE and into January for a few things. I feel the pressure of needing to have things done before I leave, so that’s just exacerbating all of this. And I still need to make rent.

5) I’m finally on time for the bonus hour for once, and get a ride. Instead of him adding a new destination into the app, he has me go to a gas station which adds 10 extra min, as I have a ride waiting in queue. (I’ve learned my lesson, as this has happened a few times now. I don’t care if they tip in cash after, it sucks and I’m done doing it. Especially since it’s a safety risk now that I think about it.)

As I’m going to reposition the app to drive this man to his destination finally, I accidentally swipe “drop off” and lose his trip entirely. It immediately shifts to the next ride, which I had to then cancel. And Lyft says we can go offline for up to 15 min during a bonus streak, but it LIED because when I came back on, I had to start over. The ride after that took me a good 25 min out of the city one way. All this to say, I once again was denied a full opportunity at bonus money. (I need that money because I can only drive so much each day, which is why I structure my schedule around those hours.) Then as I leave the gas station, some other driver decides to use the exit-only lane as an entrance and we almost have a collision.

And the last ride of my day? An older woman started asking me about kids, told me that “they say” (and she knows, because she’s written for John’s Hopkins before🙄) that part of the development of being fully female is when we have children and breastfeed. 🤢🤮 Like it’s somehow my duty, and the only way to be a “woman”. I didn’t bother telling her off, or about who I actually am. Something seemed off with her anyway. But like. WTF? AND she insisted that I tell her my deadname after I explained to her my name now is a recycled version of it.

Y’all I’m exhausted. And I started this post saying that I really want to be mad about all of this, but I can’t. All I can be is tired.

I am learning that we only have so much energy to dedicate to what’s important, and I choose today that what’s important is not being mad at the world for being rude to me (lol). Instead I’m looking at how I’ve managed to have a semi-productive day after a small meltdown (that’s a huge win), and I’m looking at how having older people in power (who are super removed from the world and how it works) is something we need to address as a society. If people want to be in power and serve their communities, they need to actually KNOW who they serve. Obviously this isn’t how things work, because most people in power are there for the power, not for the people. But goddammit can we start doing something about that???

Times are changing. The Future is Queer. We can no longer assume who people are just by looking at them, we can no longer assume that humanity neatly falls into binary categories of gender or neurotype. I’m so over how things are currently. All today’s experience can do is fuel my mission of changing the world, one connection at a time.

I sent that woman away with a smile because I knew I wouldn’t be able to change her way of thinking in a 4 minute drive to her house. I choose compassion over anger.

I choose love for others, even in their misguided knowledge. I choose love for myself, even with all my mistakes and anger. I choose love.

Life and everything in it represents–past the metaphorical–infinite possibilities. As humans, we get to BE those possibilities. If we are infinite possibilities, and we are, through what we focus our attention on, then I choose to shift my attention and seek the paths guided by curiosity, courage, and compassion.

That was a lot. Thanks for reading 💜🤘🌈

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I recently entered another contest on vocal.media in hopes to win money so that I may transform my blog into a nonprofit. Here’s my submission; these are my intentions.

Drop a stone into still water, and you will see its ripple effect. That’s what I want to be. I want to be an effective agent of social change, a stone dropped into water, propelled into the future by compassion—compassion for the self and compassion for others. My goal is to provide resources and a safe space for people to explore and understand their identities in relation to currently accepted social constructs in order to become more self-actualized, and by doing so, create a more empowering and compassionate world. 

I long for this kind of new world, and I believe that compassion is the key:

Developing compassion for the self is not easy. It took me the first 25 years of my life to figure out that I am not what people have told me I am, that I am not broken because I didn’t fit their molds. Now at 27, even when I struggle, I have a community behind me because embracing my authentic self, and committing to loving myself for who that is, brought the right people to me and me to them. I want to bring resources, resources that I didn’t have growing up, to folk who are exploring their identities in context of the pervasive and harmful constructs that exist today. I believe through self-exploration and acceptance, in defiance of the wills that be, compassion can’t but flow freely. That compassion is contagious and empowers others. It strengthens our communities, and we grow together. 

Within that compassion, I find it imperative for individuals to demand social change by decolonizing their points of view and the ways they interact with the world. I will admit that I am still learning, but that’s why community is so important, so that we can learn from each other as we grow together. I aim to leverage the privilege that I do have to raise the voices of marginalized communities and to usher in new understanding for those who are not affected by racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, etc. We do not exist in a vacuum; intersectionality needs to be the lens through which we perceive people and our interactions. History has its role in informing present actions, so that a brighter future may be achieved.

Maslow got it wrong:

In effort to decolonize our hierarchy of needs as perpetuated by Maslow himself, it’s important to recognize that he bastardized the “hierarchy” found in Blackfoot culture, which he visited in 1938. In Blackfoot culture, as discussed by Dr. Cindy Blackstock, self-actualization is an integral step toward cultural perpetuity, with cultural actualization between the two. Western concepts of this process has done a great disservice to humanity, as we are so far away from our roots in stark individuality, and suffering for it. Humans are social beings, and need community to survive and thrive. I’m not talking about thriving in the sense of having a CEO position that makes millions of dollars by exploiting the labor beneath, but thriving in the sense that all humans are cared for, fulfilled, and happy. The Blackfoot way of life is not a hierarchy, as each element mentioned works simultaneously and instantaneously. The individual cannot thrive without its community, and the community would not exist without each individual doing their part. But in a modern world where it is nearly impossible to live authentically without burden, it’s hard to imagine what a world would look like when all of us are self-actualized—cared for, fulfilled, happy—a world where we all know who we are outside of the social constructs that tell us who we’re supposed to be. In fact, if we were all self-actualized, I can almost guarantee that late capitalism would be a thing of the past and that harmful structures of knowing—racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, xenophobia, etc.—would cease to exist.

A means to get there:

This blog is my brain child, and people are my passion. This blog is to become a hub of information and a safe space for self-exploration. I do not wish to only share my life experience as a white, autigender nonbinary, pansexual, polyamorous, autistic w/ADHD, disabled human; there are many places to relate to others on the internet. My overarching goal is to provide resources in one place for gender, sexuality, neurodiversity, disability, and sex-body-kink positivity. 

The safe space that this blog is to embody isn’t just for self-exploration, though. This is also where people can come to understand and embrace diversity in meaningful ways (ways in which to engage in anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion work). Too often do people shy away from learning and growing because they’re afraid of being wrong. We must set shame aside in order to grow, and I intend on being another conduit out in the ether for people to set aside their preconceptions and biases, to ask questions, and to not shy away from being wrong. Because when we are wrong, there is always the choice to learn and grow. And when we know better, we can do better.

The End Game:

Gaining numbers of subscribers is equal to building community. I’m in the beginning stages, but people read what I have to say because they feel seen and/or they’re learning more about the world that they’re living in. One day in the not-so-far-off future, I am going to turn this blog into a nonprofit that benefits LGBTQIA+ youth and their families specifically, but it will also benefit surrounding communities at large, as I am committed to playing a role in creating a more equitable society for all. 

I want to overwhelm the waters with ripples. No voice is too small when it comes to creating a more compassionate world. We need ALL the voices, and I am committed to being another stone dropped in the water, so that other stones may take form and add to the ripples as they drop too.