Thanks, 2016: What I’m Thankful For So Far This Year (I Guess)

There are a lot of things that I’m angry about right now, that aren’t the way they should be. Nazis measuring curtains for their new digs come January.

But, okay, I’m going to take a minute away from the constant conversations on social media and via text with my pals to think about what I’m grateful for.

Sure.

Um.

Okay.

Chronic Sex has really taken off. In a few weeks, I will be heading to the Pacific Northwest to put on some workshops with my pal and colleague Kate McCombs.

The fact that we’re pals alone is just mind boggling because we are essentially a perfect match as far as friends go. Kate jokes that, if someone wanted to catfish her, I would be the setup.

I love it and I am beyond thankful for our friendship and the genuine connection we have.

I presented on sex and relationships with the 18+ peeps at the Juvenile Arthritis Conferences this year, a part of Chronic Sex getting up and going.

Chronic Sex was also named one of the ‘top 100 sex blogging superheroes of 2016‘ by Kinkly.

I am grateful that the career I’m making for myself is seemingly taking off far faster than I expected it to.

I got to meet Joe Biden, who loved my t-shirt and took a selfie on my phone.

Gawd, I love him and I am so grateful to have gotten a brief conversation with him. He’s amazing.

Kenzie gave me a new nickname – whimsical unicorn warrior. I’m grateful that we have gotten closer as friends, causing trouble and laughter in our wake.

I came out as genderqueer and pansexual, both things that I hadn’t really been able to articulate until recently. It’s really nice to be (mostly) fully me. It helps with the vulnerability that I’ve been wanting to maintain.

I have been able to attend great conferences and travel. I’ve been to New York, Toronto, Phoenix, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and (soon) back to the PNW – and that’s all for work! T and I took a bit of a road trip to drive his old car from Wisconsin to California for my sister which took us through states neither of us had been through before.

We lost our Oreo. It has been one of the hardest things T and I have been through together. Oreo was our sick baby and I wish with all my heart that he was here, squeaking around and poking Jaq in the butt.

His death has forced me to confront the fear of death that I have that has frozen me in the past. It has forced me to confront what I might think I know about the afterlife after literally seeing him running around our apartment after he passed.

I’m grateful that he passed after I quit my day job. I don’t know that I could have handled it with having to work, etc. That alone was its own adventure and something that has helped me grow immensely.

I have learned what I want to do with my life and what I won’t tolerate. My creation of boundaries and deal-breakers in friendships and other relationships has gotten better – and I’m sticking to them better.

I’m grateful to have seen Hamilton on Broadway. It was an amazing night and there is so much to be said for seeing it in person. I’ve also visited Hamilton’s grave as well as the house he had built and only lived in two years before his death.

I’ve navigated around New York City, Los Angeles, and other large cities by myself. I’ve beat the idea that was pounded into my head growing up that I would be a moving target and far too trusting – that I would die in a big city.

And, despite the election, I got my ability to fight back. I have an amazing support system, full of family, friends, and colleagues. We all fight and stand for the same things and we all have each other’s backs. This is the thing that I am grateful for most of all – the ability of people who have been through the shittiest things to come together and fight, not only for themselves but also for others.

Even though it ends on a more somber note, 2016 has been an okay year. It is a year of growth and change.

I just hope that we can use our power to fight to move the change in a better direction, one that sees me writing this post next year without censoring, injury, and losing so many I care about just because they’re not white, rich, cishet men.