an antfirmation

a personal reflection on 2021

the author puts up a peace sign with their right hand as they sit in the front seat of a car. they are a Black person with black facial hair and a small afro. they wear a burgandy collared shirt with a black patterned crewneck shirt underneath.

hey ant,

twennytwenny and twennytwenny-part-two (twennytwennyone) bodied us. obliterated. smashed and grabbed. super smashed, no brothers. wrecked, no ralph. bulldozed, all gentrification. hot combed, no flat iron. blended and separated. bleached then sullied. then bandaged the squishy wounds as more popped the fuck up.

in 2021 alone, we:

• reconnected with a family member with whom we had a toxic relationship and promptly disconnected from said family member after meeting up in person

• left twitter for 12 months without any hobby or alternative community to replace it

• got diagnosed with sleep apnea after lengthly insurance issues

• slept through more social and professional appointments than we thought was possible

• got re-diagnosed with pre-diabetes, drastically changed our diet by cutting out most carbs, then mourned how losing the comfort of familiarly really affected our mental health

• went to the e/r for chest pain and a back spasm that felt like bowling alley bumpers we couldn't release

• started and ended relationships, all the while attempting to be a lot more open about our feelings

• completed transcranial magnetic stimulation monday through friday for a number of weeks

• cared for Apple before and after three surgeries and multiple appointments for cancer

• asked for help (!!) paying for her care that had reached tens of thousands of dollars

• got hit-and-run on the freeway

• continued weekly therapy

• continued dissertation work

and all during a global pandemic.

tired does not even begin to cover how we're feeling or doing. exhausted, weary, through, fatigued, scarred, and worn come closer, but labeling such a difficult period proves elusive.

the trauma we've been running from lapped us, slowing down on the second go-round to spit right between our eyes when we didn't even have the strength to pass the baton.

the feelings we spent our life intellectualizing away instead of actually feeling backhanded us into the 1990s while we still had 2021 sponserbilities.

and while life has been lifing, we have not been writing. shit, we've barely been reading. not for ourselves, not for others, not for money, not for free. writing just...hasn't happened. and each time we begin an essay or blog post—because academic articles have truly not been happening—we stop there. we begin, we don't end. we always be starting but we do not always be closing. the self-doubt that we thought we had mostly avoided in grad school shows up when we sit down to write.

now, we've written for a long long time. a long ass time, even. remember way back when livejournal was new? working for the high school newspaper as a freshman? way back when we got excited that five whole people read our wordpress blog? when we didn't think of ourself as a "writer"?

but from 2015 to 2017, we wrote. this was while doing fiftyleven jobs, university classes, running an annual research symposium, applying to grad school, organizing, too. (while doing too much). through depression. through burnout. through it all?

well, our writing output greatly decreased when we began grad school. greatly. and this was not just about the time and capacity that our phd program take, though those must be considered.

we made time for our program, relationships, breath of the wild, mary wanna, learning los angeles, live shows, boba, friends. the decrease came mostly from the displacement of mental space. where we once reserved a section of our mind-body for non-academic writing as a form of processing and communication, something about the program shifted our insides over time.

rememory when we would write—and often publish—our thoughts prior to the program? the summer before starting, when we planned to shop a book of essays and affirmations to editors for publication? yet four years later, we have trouble even getting those thoughts down. we know how to freewrite. yet we stare at a blank screen for much longer than we are used to. when we do begin typing, we get a few paragraphs in before we delete it or we just abandon it entirely.

here's the thing: we have lost a lot more than we once thought throughout grad school and especially through the pandemic. confidence, purpose, desire, fulfillment, motivation, goals, a broader vision.

but here's the other thing: i'm proud of you. we're proud of you. we're proud of us.

this year felt a lot like 2016, when we were embarrassed as we told bosslady that we couldn't work anymore because our depression was too bad.

this year felt too much like when we started medication because we straight up weren't eating or showering.

this year, the feelings of wanting to disappear returned with backup. the feelings of passive suicidal ideation, where we'd rather just not be, they popped back up in a new way. it was bad. it still is bad.

but you, we, kept on going. kept on:

• eating, showering, taking care of them teefs

• taking care of that blood sugar level

• taking care of apple

• responding to texts, reaching out to people,

• asking for help

• dancing, laughing, reposting, spreading joy,

• working out

• caring for plants, adopting new plants,

• reframing negative thought patterns, stopping self-harming behavior before it began

• trying new things

• prioritizing health

• setting boundaries, apologizing less, being honest

• reading for pleasure

• volunteering every weekend we could at the prison

• digging in those archives

• caring for friends, loving on family

• making mistakes, being gentle with ourself

• and showing up.

you didn't show up all the time. that's okay. there were days/weeks/months where you did not want to show up, but you did. i'm not just so fucking proud of you, i'm sofa king proud of you.

-ant

p.s. remember when two of our friends referred to us as one of the most prolific people they knew, prompting us to type "define: prolific” into google? we are not prolific, but thank you, we thought, because up until then we thought that prolific meant some variation of "important." remember when we learned that prolific just means productive? "one of the most prolific writers i know" merely means that these hoes (read in a sex-positive way: us) write a lot. we did. and we do. thanks, friends.