congratulations, you just got a step closer to knowing me
I’m having a hard day. I realise it’s kind of dramatic to say that forty two minutes after I woke up but I am. So maybe the more accurate thing to say is the hardness of the last few days have spilled into today, congealing while I slept. There’s a part of me that is hesitant to say that because maybe if I declare today … Continue reading I’m having a hard day.
Mariame Kaba says that hope is a discipline. That it isn’t necessarily about feeling optimistic but it’s about the commitment to do whatever you can on any given day in service of a better future. So hope is like love in that way: we often think of it as a feeling but it’s more of a choice, a commitment you make every single day. Continue reading Taking stock 2022.
I had a world stopping moment yesterday. It didn’t hit me at the time because I thought of it as a bump at worst but it’s fifteen hours later and I’m feeling stranded—like I’ve arrived to the part of myself that’s always known there’s no way out. You know how they say that if you put a frog in hot water it will jump out … Continue reading Maybe this too, is a thing of beauty.
The day before I started radiation and chemotherapy, we sat on my aunt’s dining room table trying to figure out how to make the coming seven weeks as bearable as possible. It was a warm day towards the end of April and I mostly sat in silence, feeling like I couldn’t possibly contribute anything meaningful to the conversation. I think part of it was that … Continue reading I need you guys’ help.
But I also know that I’m trying. That in the last few years, when I’ve felt angry, I haven’t rushed to bury it. That I’ve sat with it. That I’ve let it teach me, that I’ve let it make me furious enough to choose myself. And maybe I’ll always be the kind of person that quietly rages at big unflinching things—at gods who don’t see me and men who aren’t scared of me. But maybe the point the point is to stop raging at myself. Continue reading A meditation on anger.
And because of that I think if I have to choose one thing that people will see and love, I’ll pick my writing because I think I do that well and my whole life, I’ve tried to be really easy to love; to make it worthwhile. Like, I don’t person well at the moment, so here, take my writing, love it for me. Continue reading Because I’m still powerful even when I don’t feel like it. 
Because I think apocalypses, more than anything, are personal. I survived my apocalypse. I’ve held my heart in my hand and watched the sun rise and for so many mornings, the universe’s utter indifference to my pain hurt so much, I thought it would kill me. Because why would the sun continue to rise when my world was ending? But beauty? That shit is relentless. And my heartbeat? It’s the most beautiful thing I know. Continue reading My little life.
So there’s that—harrowing grief that stretches and swallows me whole. I feel really small in the face of it and I’m running out of emotional real estate to house it. But there’s also progress. Sometimes I think of a pun and it makes me laugh so hard, my teeth hurt. Sometimes I catch myself talking to myself, and it feels like I’m high-fiving myself. Everyday I catch glimpses of myself and it reminds me that I’m here; that I am present; that I am getting back to myself. Continue reading Some things I know for sure:
In holding my breath I have learnt that I can hold my ground. I used to think of myself as a panicked, flailing kind of person. I’ve learnt that I’m a lot calmer than I realise. I think of myself, holding my breath, staring at the ceiling, trying to see how far I can count until my chest burns, or my vision blurs. I just lie there, not gasping, perfectly at peace. Partly because of this, I know that if need be, whatever else life throws at me, more often than not, all I’ll ever have to do is hold my breath, and lie perfectly still until it passes. Continue reading Taking stock, 2020
Sometime last year, my cousin was driving me to a doctor’s appointment. While we searched for music for the road, I mentioned that I’d never listened to a single John Mayer song and he sought to change that. We listened to an entire album that I couldn’t tell you anything else about other than it has a song about slow dancing in a burning room. … Continue reading Burn it down.
Clarie's Ramblings 