2020 has been an absolute flaming pile of shit. Yeah. I said that. Me. The woman who went on a podcast in January, released in February, and said “2020 will be my year,” with my whole chest. My support system and I are finally at the point where we all laugh about it. We really thought this was the year people would pick up my cause and run with it until I saw justice. We thought it could only get better. We were wrong.
When the clock strikes midnight tonight, I’m kissing 2020 goodbye. Actually, I’m kicking that fucker out the door. Trust me when I say I understand better than most that the pandemic won’t magically disappear on the first, that’s not what I’m referencing. I’m saying goodbye to all the pain, heartache, grief and trauma this year gifted me that I just did not need.
In 2020, I reentered society. I got loud. I went on a podcast and begged to be heard. I begged people to care. I told them I wouldn’t give up. Within the year a lot of people who heard my cries would leave me and my fight behind. I can’t tell you what that feels like after having been the woman people watched crawl through the streets. I’m still crawling. But now, if I’m too human, if I’m not enough of a source of inspo porn, if I hold anybody accountable for the follow through, I’m shunned and it’s not even because they don’t know. They know. They’re just too busy to care. My favorite was, “When life gets back to normal, we’ll keep fighting for you,” like your life being “normal” is absolutely any reflection of what I’ve endured and what I deserve, and how I live unsafe every day.
This year my life was flooded with people who used me as a trophy to virtue signal to others that they were somehow “good,” like they were fulfilling some shallow faux caregiver role by acknowledging my existence or my story. I can’t tell you how many people swarmed me to use my story, my status, my heritage, my disabilities, my identity, to prop up their egos. I’m so much lesser than, am I? And the work of my caregivers is so simple? Absolutely not. This year my disabilities and my status were used against me. They were used to manipulate and abuse me. I’ve not been treated so poorly and been left so utterly in shambles by those decisions of others in years. It’s just not something I have permitted in my new life since I began to advocate for myself. I didn’t survive for this. I didn’t survive for this. I’ve been left in such confusion and exhaustion, because I know so firmly my boundaries and my moral compass, regardless of how well I know this new self, and I know I’ve made them clear to everybody I interact with. How do you heal when your boundaries are trampled by people lined up like dominoes, one falling right after the next, on top of all you believe in and care about? I suppose that’s a journey for 2021, so I’ll keep you posted.
This year I was stalked, I was raped, I buried loved ones. I mean, shit, even my poor cat died. I had to cut ties with the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center (BARCC) after discovering I was far from the only disabled survivor they had turned away in these past five years. I had strangers seeking my address. I had strangers access my address. I had strangers pretend to be a part of my life to access members of my support system. I had to yell at people that their anti-racism counted for nothing if they treated the “I” in “BIPOC” as silent, as dead, as gone. I had to do the virtual school thing with a kid who just could not find a fuck to give. I had to stay off of formerly safe trails because anti-maskers exist and even more people who have no idea what personal space is exist. I started a community space, and then another one, and have been moving through all those really great first year growing pains that make me want to pull my hair out. Except, of course, my hair is already falling out, all the time, and I’ve had fevers every day for months, and my mouth is full of sores, because yes, I am still an immunocompromised person in some sort of flare that nobody can seem to pinpoint after two decades of them happening. This year I lost the head of my TBI team. I gained another, who is actually I think superhuman. It still sucked. I accepted new friendships and found out they weren’t friendships. I have tried for over six months to get a podcast off the ground with two separate cohosts who bailed. I have been left in the dust by lawyers and by journalists who swear there is just too much going on right now. I have said as many goodbyes as I have said hellos. I have felt, physically, in my heart and in my gut, what the intentionally grand defeat of every small and large hope left within me feels like. I am quite sick and quite tired. I wholeheartedly did not fuck with 2020. I didn’t survive for this. I did not survive for 2020 to challenge 2016 as the worst year on record in the lives of myself and my loved ones.
Every year since 2016, I sit and make a list of seven highlights. It started for my mum and I as a way to call attention to how and why I am still here, and what makes still being here worth it. I spend my last week of each year honoring those brightest spots. This year, coming up with seven whole highlights was painful. I did it, but oh boy, it was hard to do. The small bright spots really are what I had left. The painfully human moments that made me feel alive, those are my highlights of 2020. There were belly laughs, tears cried, fish caught, sweets savored, fresh air inhaled, FaceTime hangs that lasted for hours and text chains that lasted for months. There were hugs that lasted too long when safe, and hugs longed for when they weren’t. There was grieving together, while apart, and celebrating things like sunshine or fresh snow. There were puppy cuddles. There were zoom calls where we bared our souls. There were phone calls begging for direction. There were announcements of new life. There were tough, necessary conversations. There were kisses. There were smiles. There was creation and beginnings and a drive, a motivation, a purpose. There was a full long standing support system holding me up after years, just continuing, just loving me and allowing me to love them. There was my Mum, and my littles. There were my best friends. There was my partner. There were quiet moments of caregiving. There were memes. There was learning. There was gratitude and grace and joy.
2020 was an absolute flaming pile of shit. And, it was achingly human to experience. In a way so many of us needed to remember, we are still here, we are still in possession of our humanity, we can still get through hard things and put good out into the universe. All pain, and all the relief. I’m ready for 2021.
Getting Good at Running Away 