Sitting down to write today has been its own occupation. I’m finally sitting at my desk at 4 in the afternoon, around the time I would be getting home from work if I weren’t on holiday. We took Nicki to daycare about 6 hours ago and I’ve been readying to write ever since. And as I type that sentence I realize that fairly soon I’ll be heading off to pick her up. Procrastinating is a full-time job.

Prior to sitting I spent a wonderful hour with G on his break from work–poor baby had to return back today! We walked around the neighborhood and watched part of a documentary about the 90s before pausing and talking until he had to return to work. We’ve spent the past two weeks together without interruption and all I want to do is be with him again. Luckily he works from home so he’s just in the next room at his computer while I sit here in our bedroom with an orange lava lamp and cranberry scented candle on either side of my computer.

My whole world this new year is unfathomably cozy compared to almost any other new year I remember. Just four years ago on this day I experienced my most painful moment in recent memory. I was supposed to appear at a hearing for my job that had suspended me with pay 6 months prior. This hearing would determine if that status remained or what would happen to me next. I’d already delayed the hearing twice in order to eek out as much health coverage as I could. I was separated from my abusive husband and living alone in our downtown Chicago townhome. I was attempting suicide by drinking because living while drinking had seemingly failed for me. My parents were at my house trying to keep me up and steady so I could attend the hearing. I didn’t attend. My status was switched to suspended without pay. I had no income. No joy. And no desire to continue.

Conversely, this morning I woke up in the most comfortable circumstances in recent memory. G and I had both been on vacation from our respective jobs for weeks, and together with Nicki we celebrated Christmas and New Year’s in our brilliant little home. A tree in the main window decorated by his family who had just visited a few weeks before. Food and movies and music. Even a quick camping trip in Michigan. And this morning we were nestled together in our bed, clinging to the remaining seconds of sleep before we awoke for G’s work day.

A paragraph leap down the page and I’m sitting down to write again. I’ve spent the past few hours not writing but instead going to pick up Nicki from daycare and coming home to feed her so she can take her medicine. She is horribly picky with eating these days, which is normal for her, but recently it takes on new gravity because she had some anal gland rupture and she needs to take regular medication with food. She’s asleep in the chair behind me now, and G has finished his work day and gone to the gym. Vibrant music is playing throughout the condo, and the lights are set to “glitz and glam.” I have nothing ahead of me except dinner with G and relaxing together on the couch.

A connection with that horrible day I mentioned where I was 4 years ago, it was sandwiched between my first meeting/date with G a few weeks prior and my soon-to-be second date with him 4 days and a hospital trip later. It was a crazy time and yet somehow we managed to find our way together and we’ve clung to each other ever since. And we’ve endured and worked hard through our personal revolutions and life re-inventing. And here I sit at my writing desk in the life I’ve sought my entire existence. Living free and queer and non-binary with my other half. And he is also she and shares their heart and tenderness with me daily.

I’m so grateful to be alive in this moment, which of course required my existence for every other moment so I’m grateful for every moment I’ve had up to and including this one. Especially the shit ones. Because those sit some place in my memory and help me see with clarity all the colors of this life in this time. I’m letting go of all my hurt from perceived and real rejection from those I thought loved me. I’m increasingly aware of the real people in my life and the real love they show me daily. And I’ve spent a lot of time looking in the mirror and smiling and appreciating my reflection. I look like me today.

A few months ago a friend of mine posted a quote on their IG story: “Live from your imagination and not from your memory.” I say that to myself as a mantra and it’s helping me breakout of some of my thought cages. I need to get better at setting down to type some of my memories so I can let them go and make room to imagine more. Because this is the time. This is the moment that I have, all others are imaginary.

My project this year is to only say things that are true for me and not worrying about aligning with anyone else’s truth. I want to write a book with G called “Our Happy Queer Story” and tell collaboratively our stories of life before and after our universes collided. I want to celebrate freely the “good” with the “bad” and then step beyond that binary. I want to spend more time outside of my home and force myself to take a risk every day. I want to recover from my addiction to anxiety and replace it with curiosity and stillness and joy. I want to publish this post and sit and listen to Nicki snore.