Content note: this piece contains discussion of death, grief, and hospitals. I don’t really know what to write. My usual way with words has gotten away from me. I’ve been left with a chaotic swirl of thoughts, images, and feelings that are difficult to articulate. Thinking about death. Thinking about grief. Thinking about meaning, aboutContinue reading “What My Grandmother Taught Me”
Tag Archives: personal
Anxiety > Insomnia > Anxiety: Capitalism?
I have anxiety-induced insomnia and sleep-deprivation-induced anxiety. It’s a vicious cycle. I’m not always sure what triggers my bouts of sleeplessness, but I know as soon as they’ve been activated.
For awhile, all is well. Then one night, right after I lay my head down, I’m hit with the first pang of anxiety.
Gender Expression, Revisited
I attended a queer zine fair in Tio’tia:ke/Montreal last weekend. There were so many people in attendance expressing gender in defiance of the binary, with beards and glitter and leg hair and lingerie and jewelry and shaved heads and colourful outfits. It was really affirming. Seeing so many gender variant people made me want to vary my gender expression more.
Inside the MRI
I lie on my back with my head ear-muffed inside the MRI scanner, listening to bad club music, trying not to laugh, and thinking about death. The awkward redheaded technician is visible as a shapeshifting shadow through the glass. They’ve provided a mirror inside the machine so I can see them and not have a panic attack.
Non-Monogamy, Jealousy, and Security
Nonmonogamy is stressful. Monogamy is also stressful.
Monogamy stresses me out because it doesn’t feel quite right to me, doesn’t fit quite naturally. It feels like a lot of pressure, like this person is now the only person and that’s it and you will never get to explore anyone else. Nonmonogamy gives me the space to breathe. I don’t have to feel guilty about liking other people. It takes the pressure off of a single relationship and allows me to feel more at ease, more myself, but it also has its stressors: fear, jealousy, complication, worry, what if my partner leaves me?
Sage Pantony 