Hello dear friends,
A new check-in is up. I hope it helps you create a moment to slow down and listen in.
Medical Aid for Palestinians
Now through Oct 17 we are donating 25% of profits from all prints and stickers to Medical Aid for Palestinians. If you’d like to take part, you can view the fundraiser art here: PRINTS and STICKERS
coming out
National Coming Out Day was earlier this week. I wrote a bit about it, and am passing it on to you now belatedly. I hope it helps.
I came out the moment I realized I was queer (backstory: I had fallen in love with Danielle so fast I didn’t know it was happening until I did — my husband-at-the-time said, in seeing me with her, he realized he’d never seen my in love before 🤯 then, my whole life changed).
Over the next two months I “came out” to over 60 people in one on one conversations — I was deeply set in a homophobic community and family system and was wooed by the idea that it was people like me coming out to the ones who loved us that could spark change in “hearts and minds.” That if they loved me they would embrace who I was becoming. I turned myself inside out, just to realize that so many of them only loved their idea of me.
If I could go back my young self, I would tell them that coming out - disclosing who we are, being public and visible and interpretable - is the smallest part of the whole thing. The heart of it is knowing ourselves, listening carefully, not rushing, and nurturing our own nuance and joy.
There are wide spaces in and around the parts of ourselves that we will never be able to put into words.
Language helps us find each other and name what we have in common, but we don’t owe it to anyone, especially people who will use it to destroy us.
We can be for ourselves and each other the loving place we need to expand, to see clearly, to enjoy who we are.
From there, telling other people is simply an act of trust, intimacy, friendship. It’s something we do in places of ease and reciprocity.
If I could go back my young self, I would say: share your story in freedom, and in freedom only.
Happy national coming out day. I love you. stay safe 💛
love,
Brit