(pretentiously, the title is a Winnie the Pooh deep cut)

I am doing a lot of things right now that I’ve never done before. I realized that I can continue to change and become a person that I enjoy becoming. I realized that it’s never too late to pick a thing to like. I accidentally figured out that happiness, for my neurospicy self that can’t define ‘happiness’ or ‘joy’ very easily, is made up of lots of little experiences that I have that feel good. Like a favorite song played on repeat, even the smallest thing can bring me into a little pocket of space-time in which there is joy.

This is the year I’ve started to grasp why joy is so important to the movements of resistance for those of us who are disabled, and queer, and building the community that is the only way to a timeline where the world doesn’t end.

Since I have CPTSD, even though I work on it with my therapist regularly, I don’t tend to recall very well what happened more than six months ago unless I note it down somewhere. The only reason I remember important things that happened this year is that I started tracking the things that I realized I was genuinely enjoying, alongside the data I usually collect about weather and solar events and the cycle of the seasons.

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Since January this year, I’ve read 22 books, finished 31 Asian dramas, and listened to hundreds of songs. I’ve sobbed over sudden epiphanies that arrived in the middle of an emotional scene (usually in a Korean drama).

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books I read: even though I want to have already read more of them

The Far Reaches collection: How it Unfolds (James S.A. Corey), Void (Veronica Roth), Falling Bodies (Rebecca Roanhorse), The Long Game (Ann Leckie), Just Out of Jupiter’s Reach (Nnedi Okorafor), and Slow Time Between the Stars (John Scalzi).

Sleeping with Friends (Emily Schultz);
The Last Wish: Introducing the Witcher (Andrzej Sapkowski);
The Resurrection of Fulgencio Ramirez (Rudy Ruiz);
Ashes (Iona Wayland);
Light from Uncommon Stars (Ryka Aoki);
A Memory Called Empire (Arkady Martine);
We Ate the Dark (Mallory Pearson);
We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Restorative Justice (adrienne maree brown);
Gideon the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir);
Mexican Gothic (Silvia Moreno-Garcia);
The Visit (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie);
The Colour of Magic (Terry Pratchett);
Hell Followed With Us (Andrew Joseph White);
An Unkindness of Ghosts (Rivers Solomon);
The Premonition (Banana Yoshimoto);
Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi (Novel) Vol.1 (Mo Xiang Tong Xiu).

There is a comfortable disarray of nineteen books that I have been reading but haven’t finished yet. Some of them are poetry and some of them are graphic novels and some of them are by indigenous authors and some of them are about death and most of them are queer or queer-adjacent. It has been a good year for me and other peoples’ words.

shows I watched: not enough but still so many

please enjoy the above slideshow of beautiful people being beautiful about the shows they’re in

Starting off January with a bang (in a gay way lolol), I finished watching The Untamed on Netflix and discovered an additionally lovely special edition on YouTube, so technically I watched it at least twice to begin with. It’s officially a comfort show now, so I can put it on and just enjoy the vibes if I want to.

The Longest Promise is perfectly nice and stars one of the actors I love from The Untamed, although it isn’t gay so I’m meh about it. Also, I haven’t been able to watch Wang Yibo in anything else since the Untamed because I saw him being gay and now I refuse to unsee it.

I Cannot Reach You, my first Japanese BL series, was more abrupt than I expected but it was kind of adorable. Tale of the Nine-Tailed was my first K-drama, which had me deep in my feels and having epiphanies even though I didn’t ask for them. I then watched Word of Honor, which is stealthily gay (not really very stealthy tbh) and I loved it. Love Between Fairy and Devil changed my opinion of straight C-dramas and from here on out, every straight romance I’ve watched is because the male lead is Gender Goals ™ (the hair, the extremely sharp & precise eyeliner, the masc energy). Miss the Dragon was a good reminder of the nebulous type of happy ending I have been noticing in all these Asian dramas I’m enjoying.

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Back From the Brink was beautiful and it HURT my FEELINGS. I think there is a second season, which will probably also hurt my feelings. The Princess and the Werewolf was corny, but the acting and set and costuming were really well done, and it was my first introduction to Chen Zheyuan, who is one of the adorable people I like looking at. Lost You Forever [season one] was a story I couldn’t stop watching and I am psyching myself up for season two because IT IS INTENSE.

Till the End of the Moon wrecked me. In a good way, like how deep tissue massage hurts like fuck but later you feel like an unrolled de-boned paper bag.

Love Better Than Immortality was less interesting than I had hoped, but I’m not upset that I spent time watching it. Falling Into Your Smile is a modern C-drama featuring Xu Kai and his dimples as a sumptuous feast for the eyes. Sword and Fairy 6 was lovely but a little too vague at the end. My Demon is another K-drama that I loved which also hurt my feelings. My Beautiful Man is a BL J-drama that was kind of a letdown, but there are more seasons so who knows? Maybe I will try again. Guardian: The Lonely and Great God is a K-drama that fucked me the fucking fuck up and I don’t think I can watch it without hysterically sobbing again, but it’s SO good.

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Then I finished Doom At Your Service, another emotionally complicated yet satisfying K-drama; Warm on a Cold Night, a cute somewhat unserious C-drama; Hotel Del Luna, yet another K-drama that kicked me in the metaphorical balls; My Journey to You, a marvelously dark C-drama that I hope has a second season because OTHERWISE WHY DID IT END LIKE THAT; Love Behind the Melody, a C-drama that was easy to watch and the ending didn’t hurt my feelings.

The Inextricable Destiny is a C-drama that plays with some ableism tropes in an interesting way. Master Devil Do Not Kiss Me (season 1) is my HUGE REGRET, I only finished it because I thought something would finally make it worth it but it was NOT. Conversely, Love You Seven Times is one of my favorite C-dramas because the actors are pretty and the multiple-lives storyline is so well put together and sweet. Destined With You is another gorgeous K-drama that I would love to watch again; Hidden Love is the most precious and sweet modern C-drama I have watched so far.

Which brings us to this month, in which I have finished Wonderland of Love, an emotionally challenging but beautiful story featuring Xu Kai and his wonderful dimples; The Bride of Habaek (The Bride of the Water God), a K-drama that — you might be sensing a theme here — gave me Emotional Damage although I knew it was going to happen and I did it anyway; Good and Evil, which was a little silly but the male lead, played by Fiction Guo, has the most beautiful mouth. Just so pretty. And finally My Holo Love, a K-drama that was less rough on the feelings but still a gorgeous complex story exploring what it might be like for an AI to interact with people on an emotional level.

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I’m in various stages of watching fifteen more shows (haha lol) and there are fifteen on my on-hold list since I overdid it with shows that starred the same actors, resulting in my getting a bit confused on what storyline I was watching. I have a massive watchlist, but it’s aspirational. I know I can’t literally watch all more-than-a-hundred shows, but I am interested in watching each one. I also gave myself permission not to finish a show if I just can’t get into it.

I’m not anywhere near done

One of my housemates introduced me to K-pop, which means that sometimes the song already playing in my head when I wake up (I’ve heard this is kind of a specific neurodivergent thing?) is either Say My Name by ATEEZ, Bite Me by ENHYPHEN, or MEGAVERSE by Stray Kids. (I am noticing a lot of ALL CAPS lol)

I started learning Cymraeg (Welsh) over a year ago and I love it. A few weeks ago I decided I wanted to try Chinese — the one that Duolingo has, which is Modern Standard Chinese — including Pinyin and Hanzi, which is fascinating and so tricky. I think that my AuDHD brain really enjoys this kind of complicated challenge, where I’m trying to keep a pattern of characters (with correct brush strokes in the correct order) organized with accent marks for correct pronunciation, plus hearing and speaking words and phrases.

I discovered that coloring — of all things — calms my nervous system down. So I asked for some really nice pens and I am enjoying the heck out of my really nice pens and my fancy-feeling twenty-dollar coloring book. I don’t really know what I’m doing but that doesn’t actually matter. Art is what it is.

just think what I might do before I’m forty-seven

Through a natural process of getting older and therefore realizing more things, combined with an awareness of the transitional state my life has been in — from being a lonely parent of children and occasional romantic partner, to realizing that I am an integral and loved part of a chosen family where none of us have to be alone — it has become obvious to me that there is still so much life ahead of me. So many years to try things, and enjoy what I already enjoy, and take plenty of naps, and drink cool water, and stay up late reading, and crying when I’m reminded again that there is love and there is enough.

I shaved my head a week ago or so (what is time) and the possibilities inherent in a freshly shorn head are not lost on me. I didn’t used to be a person who was emotionally okay with having to do something again; but this year I think I’m learning to find joy in going back to the beginning to try again.

before I stop writing tonight —

I know that I don’t know where I’ll be in a year, but I will take you with me if I can.

I know that the planet is burning and the people who still have voices are screaming, and I will scream too and do all the small important things that add up to change: showing up in community and doing what needs doing, always with love and compassion and forgiveness for myself and for each of us when we fuck up sometimes, because we will.

I like to imagine that the people who read what I write here only know me through these words, but I know that some of you are specific people I know and love, people that know and love me. I know that some of you are acquaintances, some of you got here by accident at some point, and some of you would like to know if all of my content swings back and forth between pain and love like an ADHD pendulum (yes, probably).

I feel hopeful. I haven’t felt very hopeful in a while. I feel like there are people and things and places in this timeline that I haven’t got to quite yet, and the possibilities have not been erased. Even though this might be the darkest timeline, here we all are.

We aren’t alone.

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Thank you for being here. My birthday is made better knowing that I got to write words about the things I think and believe and enjoy. And doubly so because you’re here reading it.

xox,
Nix

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epilogue:

I wanted to share these lyrics because even though this song is about the heartbreak of being in relationship with someone who will definitely hurt you, it’s also about the experience itself of opening to love in a healthy context. This song resonates so deeply with me right now, because I know loving will hurt me, but it’s not a hurt for no reason. It’s not pain without purpose. It’s a gift of myself without an expectation of return; it’s love for the sake of being that unguarded and free.

holding on to you
holding onto you is like

slow dancing on land mines
it’s only a matter of time
oh but I can’t resist, oh I can’t resist
slow-dancing on land mines

love is a target
with my heart painted on it
love is a target
with my heart painted on it

Landmines, by BELLSAINT

Landmines on Spotify
Landmines on YouTube

featured image is a photo by Leonardo Sanches on Unsplash