365 of The Worst Days
number 009
If I could go back in time and tell myself that I would live almost an entire year of my life in a pandemic, during which everything else would also continue to go wrong, I would probably be able to save myself from the anxiety disorder that rides in the passenger seat everywhere I go nowadays. I know that sounds outlandish, but hear me out: I spent every waking moment from 1998-2002 worrying about Y2K and Jesus returning. I was admittedly an anxious child, but the four years that I spent looking over my shoulder for the rapture and the ensuing tribulation were the cherry on top of a very grim sundae.
My initial draw to Evangelical Christianity was in the offer that it would save me, pun intended, from the perils of the end of days. This was something that I was apprehensive about, something I would cry to the point of vomiting over each time I’d think about it too much. In the end, I was enticed because my grandfather, an early childhood hero of mine, had recently died. In his absence, my grandmother needed someone to accompany her to church. No one else wanted to go with her, and after years of being told I was good and special, it felt like an obvious role for me to play.
Instead of being saved from the book of Revelation, I spent those years being horrified by it. Every Sunday morning, the preacher in the pulpit told us to love one another. He was also sure to add in a caveat: Fear those inhabited by the devil and prepare for Jesus to come back and cast those who didn’t know him into the fiery pits of hell. And who was inhabited by the devil? Well… anyone who didn’t believe, of course. How could you prove belief? Did I believe? Did my family? How could I be sure?
It’s no wonder that this scared the ever-loving shit out of a 10-year-old girl whose family all opted out of accompanying her recently widowed grandmother to church on Sunday mornings.
These sermons were all in preparation for Y2K. And when the clock struck midnight on the first day of 2000, the world didn’t end. Jesus was nowhere to be found, and despite taking frequent headcounts at church, we determined no one had been raptured.
The illusion of this and the veil of perfection started to fall for me in high school. I started dating a boy who I wanted to come to my church, despite his attendance at his own perfectly good church. They didn’t require you to evangelize or get baptized as an adult, and I was fresh off my lake baptism and ready to get everyone I knew dipped. My boyfriend (spoiler alert—my now-husband) and I had countless great conversations about God, many of which challenged my narrow-minded view. This was also around the time my first friend came out to me. Immediately I was faced with a choice: I could tell them that they were wrong and spout off something about sin, or I could follow the greatest commandment and love them. I chose love. I held their secret, and when they came out to the rest of the school, I celebrated. I began to figure out that if the greatest commandment was love, I had no business spreading any hate. That was hard and took some time because I was constantly fed messages of hate that made me doubt my inner knowing, but I kept to it as best I could. Thankfully, I adopted this as my gospel and began forming my worldview—one that would eventually lead me to liberation. In that liberation, I began to see how deeply racist, misogynistic, transphobic, and homophobic the evangelical world really was all along.
Now, of course, the year is 2021. In the past 365 days, I have personally endured: 45, the biggest event of my year financially canceled, emergency dental work, too much time to process pent up trauma, a 2nd-degree burn, the passing of a best friend’s mother, another best friends mother getting cancer, a favorite aunt getting diagnosed with cancer, the storming of the capitol by an armed militia, and a snowstorm that turned into a national emergency. All of which transpired during a full-scale global pandemic that’s claimed millions of lives. And that’s just what happened to me. Across America, violence and murder by police against Black and brown people ran rampant. Friends were teargassed at protests. Many folks lost jobs and became homeless. Many folks lost loved ones to COVID and other illnesses too during the pandemic. The hell seemed endless and particular for each person.
If this isn’t the Apocalypse that kept me up at night, I wouldn’t have it in me to dream up something worse.
And yet, I made it through. Mentally, I’ve gotten through it. In March of last year, I wrote, “I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it through this. This all feels like too much, and I don’t know if I can do it. But what option do I have? I have to try, but even trying feels bleak.”
I was right.
At times, this year has felt unbearable. So much of what I knew about my identity has changed. So many parts of my skin had to shed to get me here. I’ve lost a lot, and still many, many people have lost more.
When I take a step back, and when I allow myself to dream about a time after, I have one significant hope: that we all remember that we got through a year full of the worst things.
If you’re reading this, you made it through. And I know you lost a lot to get here.
I hope one day in the future when we’re singing karaoke at our favorite bar, or we’re at a concert, and someone accidentally bumps into our arm, or we’re dancing to Tom Tom Club under multi-colored lights and disco balls, we remember we got through it. I hope that these past 365 days make up the worst year of each of our lives. Here’s to hoping.
Reading: No One Is Talking about This by Patricia Lockwood (author of Priestdaddy)
7 Questions, 75 Artists, 1 Very Bad Year by New York Times (which the above Mike Birbiglia quote is from.)
Writing: About abundance and taking chances.
Listening: Uncanny Valley on audiobook, this episode of The Cut on Tuesdays about getting out of your own head
Watching: Finishing the second season of The Mandalorian. Watching so many IG lives by Christian James Hand, where he deconstructs songs and plays isolated parts. As I’m typing, I’m watching him do 311’s Amber for 3/11. Also, makeup tutorials, drag queens, and best of all: drag queen makeup tutorials.
Buying: The March spending freeze sort of crashed and burned, which I feel fine about, so: beauty blenders, my first translucent powder, and the new Patricia Lockwood book.
Focusing on: Leaving this from last week: being adaptable, making myself as comfortable as possible, and not rushing through my feelings.
OMG WOW! You’ve made it this far! Thank you for supporting me by subscribing to this newsletter and sharing it with your friends. It means the world to me that you’d continue to invite me into your internet living room.
Let’s say for a second that you like what you see here and want to continue the support. In that case, you can do one or more of the following:
Forward this email to a few friends who would dig it.
Buy me a coffee.
Follow me on Instagram and share my work there.
Follow the publication I co-founded with the imitable Beth Hitchcock.
Hire me to write for your publication!
P.S. I dyed my hair platinum + lavender!
See you next Thursday.