December thoughts

/

The year is winding down. I’m preparing to go to New Brunswick for my regular Christmas visit with the family; my travel arrangements up there have all been taken care of. I haven’t bothered with Christmas shopping yet; my cash flow was a little tight until my last paycheque came in, and my tolerance for the malls has dropped over the years. Everything costs too much money now.

I haven’t been writing in the blog as much as I had wanted to this year. Most of my creative energy has been funneled into sketch comedy review posts because they’re easier to write (once I get myself into the right frame of mind). I’m not sure who I’m writing for with these personal posts; maybe on some level I’m hoping to impress some writer, artist, or just someone hot. I don’t want to get bogged down in politics here, even though my existence as a neurodivergent trans person is inherently political; I just want to be able to say what’s on my mind, and maybe hear back from other people who like my writing. It’s also easier than writing people individually.

In an ideal world, I’d have all the review posts written up and scheduled to post ahead of time. Maybe I’d use my free time to write about other things besides comedy sketches that aired over 35 years ago, or what (if anything) has been going on in my life. But once again, I get sucked into more screen time, whether through a research rabbit hole or just general boredom and sensory-seeking. My mind and body are rarely in sync when it comes to writing; I’m either full of ideas but too exhausted to transfer them to the page, or I have the time and energy to write but nothing comes out.

My brain has found a way to make even the most enjoyable leisure activity feel like an obligation. I figured out that I always need to feel like I need to have “accomplished” something during the day, such as publishing blog posts, quality socializing, cleaning the apartment, or even just getting around to movies or TV shows that I’ve been meaning to watch for years. At the end of the day, I would think of all the stuff left undone and feel a sense of disappointment, as if there wouldn’t be another chance the next day. I’m trying to get around this.

I haven’t traveled since the pandemic began; I’ve only gone between Halifax and New Brunswick to visit family. It still sounds like too much of a headache and an expense to be worth it. I would also need to get a new passport if I were to travel to the States; I rarely feel like spending a large amount of money on one specific thing, even if it could be considered an investment. It took me ages to get a new mattress.

America isn’t the safest place to be queer these days. I don’t think it ever was; the United States have always had problems with racism, antisemitism, and other forms of oppression; they’re baked right in from the nation’s Puritan origins. The Puritans really sucked, and we’re all still paying for it. Lately it feels like the mask has come off the hatred now, as if people were just waiting for open sadism and bloodlust to become socially acceptable again. There are politicians that seemingly feel orgasmic glee over the chance to inflict suffering on others.

I sometimes fantasize about going back to New York, though, because two rushed weekend trips aren’t enough, especially if a good chunk of the time was spent in transit from Newark. I haven’t seen much of the city; most of these trips centred around midtown Manhattan, with occasional dips to Wall Street and Soho, and I passed through Queens to catch my flight back to Canada. I get a vicarious thrill from seeing other people’s pictures of the city on social media; I particularly enjoy shots that aren’t of landmarks and tourist traps, just everyday life with the city as its backdrop. Those are the kinds of pictures I want to take myself.

Maybe it’s just a way to entertain some sort of fantasy about being Important Enough to have reasons to be in New York, as if I had a lot of connections down there or something. Maybe I just want some better stories.

I don’t know if it’s a sign of getting older, or that I’m just getting more perspective on things, but the more I think about how transient life is, and how insignificant I am in the grand scheme of the universe, the more I’m actually OK with it. I actually like the idea that we don’t live forever; not that I’m in any rush to leave this plane of existence, but I feel more like I can accept not needing to know, do, or have everything.

As much of a garbage fire the world is these days, with a bunch of petulant children having too much money, power, and influence, there’s only so much I can really do about it. I’m not completely powerless, but I would much rather use what power I have to live a happy life and grow as a person than to waste my energy being miserable.