Amid her coldest, bleakest point, she discovered a strength she did not know existed.
The age of forty-three haunted me like it was a deadline, an expiration date, an obstacle I just had to push through. If I could just make it to forty-four, I told myself, then everything would be okay. I wouldn’t have to keep checking my pulse at night or wonder if my body would betray me. It sounds silly, but the number carried weight.
It’s been about two years since the launch of The Ultimatum: Queer Love. As someone who indulges in the Netflix reality TV shows universe, where fresh seasons seem to drop once or twice a year, waiting that long for a new Queer Love season felt like some sort of cruel, diabolical experiment on its viewers. Like the rest of the viewers, I slurped down that hot tea, burned my tongue, and now I’m complaining about it.
Reality TV has become one of my favorite pastimes with my fiancée. We listen to recap
I am my family’s designated eulogy writer. In other families, someone might find themselves the planner, the hoster of gatherings and special events, or the comic relief, the one who lightens the mood for those around them—a job which, at a time when the world feels increasingly dire, surely cannot be discounted. Somehow, eulogist is the role I hold in mine. What started as composing birthday cards on behalf of the group as a child slowly evolved into writing my little cousins’ college application essays, and, before I knew it, the responsibilities of my post had expanded once again.
It would be cliché to describe my dad as complicated. What cis man isn’t being raised in a culture that denies them emotions and softness and compassion? But I’ll say it anyway—my dad was complicated. He was one of the most emotional people I ever knew, and he wasn’t good at hiding it. Like most cis men, his emotions came out as rage. And he regretted things, like most people, but they weren’t things I wish he had regretted.
I grew up poor.
Mama made it clear that our circumstances were a product of her decisions. Not our caste. Not a lack of intelligence. Not a generational defect. She told me, “I make enough mistakes for the both of us. Watch and learn.”
A strangled moan escapes my lips, twice, maybe three times. Instantly, I am in a tight feedback loop of visual stimulation and swirling emotions. Later that night, I write words that will become this:
fear horror grief grief grief horror mercy for
husband for driver horror horror horror don’t
think don’t think don’t think shut down shut
down don’t shut down hold on feel feel feel
horror fear grief & fear & grief & horror &
As writers, we always talk about creating living, breathing characters, not in some Victor Frankenstein sense—we’re not actually bringing anyone to life even if the voices in our heads disagree (and disagree loudly)—but we’re making them feel real. One of the absolutely necessary, though not sufficient, conditions…
Dear Former Neighbor:
It’s been years since we were neighbors. Our children are grown up and are making their own ways in the world, yet you came to mind when I recently read the poem, “I am the Rage” by Dr. Martina McGowan.
One evening you called me, “Valerie, I wanted to talk to you. I’m not sure if you’re aware of what happened between Hailey and John?”
Grief is weird. Many of us know about the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance), so I will save you the details of what that entails and how we move through each of them, sometimes without even realizing it. Sometimes even years later. But what happens after these stages? What happens years later when you look up at the sky?
For me, wrestling history is a guidepost for some of my more nebulous memories, as well as a link to some simpler life moments. I always remember wrestling playing some role in those memories, mainly the issues of WWF magazine I was reading. They’re like anchors that make the memories more authentic, and they help validate the trauma that was to come later on in my life.
I just added the word “disabled” to my author’s bio. Before that, I was using “neurodivergent” or “AuDHD” (the amalgamation of Autism and ADHD) as the first descriptors after my name, but thanks to receiving an autism diagnosis around my 35th birthday, I began toying with the idea of typing out “disabled” in describing myself to literary magazines.
BA, Theatre, Small Liberal Arts College, 2017
I graduated in the spring of 2017 with a bachelor’s degree in theatre (spelled with an RE to show this was a deeply academic and artistic liberal arts theater program). I moved to Chicago from the small village in Ohio where I studied with dreams of “making it” as an improviser and comedy writer.
The origins of my villainy begin in early February 2020 when I drove to the other side of the state to stay with my parents for my mother’s birthday. This was a trip I did regularly, often alone. It felt like something of an escape, a place I could go and not feel the weight of everyday responsibilities.
“I made dal last night” might be the most unremarkable thing anyone can say because probably so did half a billion people in India alone. I made dal last night in Los Angeles because it rained as much in a day as the whole of last year, and I wanted more than comfort food.
My mom was a vivacious person. She had bright blue eyes that matched her personality, a roar of a laugh that could make an entire theater laugh in response, and compassion that spread to every person with whom she came in contact. She was only fifty-one when she died, but she lived a life full of love and laughter, sharing it with those she worked with.
The Singulartarian Mind-Uploaders might be onto something. Their name says it all: We will defy death by uploading our thought patterns, memories, and whatever else makes up the mind onto a computer, enabling us to live…virtually. But I’m picky and demanding it seems. I want to live IRL.
Growing up in the 80s and 90s, the term “creative nonfiction” hadn’t yet assembled itself into a term, or at least I hadn’t come across it. In middle school, we studied autobiographies and essays by Anne Frank, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Ben Franklin. To my young self, these writers came with a stamp of authority because they could say, “I actually lived this.”
The first book I remember enjoying was Nose Is Not Toes by Glenn Doman. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was designed not just to teach you how to read, but as an aid in developing cognitive and intellectual ability.
I’d received a rejection letter just minutes earlier. This demonstrated that I was an utter failure and needed to move on—maybe take up candle-making and open an Etsy store or finally veganize all my grandmother’s recipes or literally anything that didn’t require putting words on a page. Almost instantly, responses began pinging my phone and inbox. Most went something like this: “You’re overreacting. Rejection’s part of being a writer.”
I’ve been prioritizing myself, something I’ve been unsuccessful at in the past. I am a survivor of sexual assault (SA) and child SA, among other complex traumas, and I live with the resulting PTSD. These experiences have caused me to value hyper-productivity and validation instead of taking care of myself.
I’ve always wanted to work in education.
The greatest shame of my young life was the first time I failed my driver’s test.
I had never failed a test in my life, despite the fact that my Pre-Calculus teacher frequently left for 60 minutes of our 80 minute period and never really closed the loop on what radians are. How could I possibly start failing now?
Being misgendered at random hasn’t always been a magical experience. Years, community, and devotion to self-discovery and personal development have allowed me to encounter such moments with curiosity and grace. I don’t have to be consumed by shame or anger. I can stay in myself, in my power, and learn something about the nature of humanity and the challenge of relating to others.
The first time I was paid for my writing, I pinned the pay stub to my corkboard. This March marked the first anniversary since I started publishing as a freelance writer. For me, freelance writing isn’t about the money as I have a more reliable part-time job. It has been a way for me to build a portfolio of work and learn about topics I enjoy researching and writing. Being published also provides a personal and public sense of legitimacy as a writer.
I have killed my cat a hundred times. In my head. Please don’t call PETA. Let me be clear. I love my cat more than I love most things in this world, and I believe that the only way I can keep anything bad from happening to him is to imagine all of the ways he could die.
I don’t remember that night. The sky could have been filled with stars, creating constellations that those before us spent countless hours pouring their souls into, discovering the patterns that formed in the dark canvas above our heads. Or the sky could have been bare, naked for us to take in its glory of emptiness, an invitation to fill it with something that wasn’t there.
I wanted my brain to remember what it was like to begin a new piece of writing from scratch. From the scratching of my pen across a blank piece of former organic matter. To remember how to pay attention to sensations before trying to type ideas.
I’m a birthday person, and I am so sorry about it. Yes, I know. I know. I declare November my birthday month. It started as a Birthday weekend, then became a Birthday week, and now it’s gotten out of hand. I ring in the start of Scorpio season each year. I am almost always conducting a subconscious birthday countdown in my head.
If you sing to periwinkles, it coaxes them out of their shell.
I don’t know if this is actually true. It may well be a myth passed down to Maine children, who explore tide pools that form temporarily in the divots and cracks of rocks. In fact, writing it down like this really makes it seem like a myth.
I envy people who can go to sleep by midnight. Who can get under their warm covers and feel their skin touch the smooth surface of their sheets and know that soon they will drift off to a night of dreams, leaving their questions or compulsive thoughts for the next day. I envy them because I simply cannot follow such a routine.
[Content warning: sexual assault]
How strange to be an adult this time around, to have the vocabulary to describe what took place in my body, to have enough self-esteem to tell myself: You deserved better than that. “I mean, is it really that prevalent? Does it really happen this often?”
“Yes,” the nurse said simply. “It happens all the time.”
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