...life...work...balance

Life. I disappeared into 🌳.
Into 🌾. Played with 🐜. Got
tangled in 🕸. To💡while
looking through 🔭 to 🪐
beyond. 🤯.

I knew I was queer. I was an 👽
lost in Kansas — 🌪 and 🌻.
Nobody acted like me. Lisped
like me: like a 🐍 slithering in
🍂. I thought I needed to
make everyone happy. But that’s
not how people work. 😬.

UGH

I hid in expectations. 🦆.
⛺️.🐟. ✝️. I was devoured by
my secret. I tried to 🙏 away
the queer. I 😿. A lot. Bitter
tears. Service would save me.
The priesthood would save me.
Others could save me.

Mysterious creations — 🎶
🎬— found me. In the 🚘.
Beamed to the 📺. In 🎞 and
on 📼. Bright and shiny ✨
from lightyears away. Some
from my 🏠 🪐. 🤯.

OMG

My family got a 🖥. But the old
kind. Like 💾. Not even 📀. It
connected to others by the 📞.
It made sounds like a 🐝
fighting a 🐍 on top of a 🐻.

On AOL I found another 👽.
Supposedly. I went to his 🏠.
He wasn’t who he said. 👺 ⚠️.
I was assaulted. Ashamed. I was
still a 👶. Not literally, but I
knew so little. So naïve. I said
🤐. The internet was mostly
📫. It was impossible to 🔍.
Encyclopedias from decades
ago were my only source about
sex, being queer, trauma. 🦖.

WTF

Work. I wanted to disappear.
My 🧠 felt like ☢️ 💣. The
pain was everywhere. Soon I
wanted to 💀. I tried to💀. I
failed. 🤯.

I found refuge from thoughts:
🎮, 🎶, 📺, and 🛐. Work
distracted me most. I built
skylights and was a busser at a
restaurant. I quiet quit from
high school. A new millennium
came. More 🎉🍾 than 💻 💣.
Still, I kept hiding. 🤥.

FWIW

I got a 📱. But old. The kind
that flipped. 🦖. The 🌐 grew.
Suddenly I searched for and
found more 🍆, 🍑, and 😈.
And still I hid.

I stopped 🙏 and quit ⛪️. I
worked for a 🗞 in Iowa. 🦖. I
became tired of 🤥. Kind of.
🤷. I came out. I found
acceptance. Disappointment.
Love. Confusion. 😳. I was
optimistic. Pessimistic. Hopeful.
Confused. 🤡.

LOL

I moved to🗽and found people
like me. I found my first ❤️.
Still, I was attached to an ⚓️. It
dragged me toward a ⚫️. I
used apps and 💬 to find
people. And 🍆. And 🍑. And
💦. And 😈. It felt safer. Sort
of. 🤷.

The 🗣 in my 🧠 were cruel. I
panicked about everything. Like.
😱. All the time. Death spirals.
🌪. The internet fueled new
fears. 🤯. Then I got a job at
Columbia. I started therapy.
Even if it was 🤑. So much 🤑.
I felt better. But 🐢. Slower
even, like 🐌. Healing is hard.
🤪.

TBH

Balance. My life disappeared
into work. I found purpose. A
🔮. I started to work with
exciting people. 🤯.

But I thought higher education
would be different. Less 🤬.
More humane. Less🦖. More
about the 🔮. Sometimes it was
and I felt good. 🤗. Often it
wasn’t and I fell apart. 😱. The
future seemed to hang on a 🧵.

SRSLY

I became a manager at Incite.
😝. I felt like an imposter. An
outsider. 😳. So, I worked
harder. 🤗. Self-worth came
from work. No love came from
within. 🌵.

Mistakes felt increasingly
unforgivable. 😱🌪. I worked
harder. I pushed the pain away
to the ✨. I found a ⚫️ instead.
My heart turned 🖤. The past
became too present. 🧟. My
first love and I drifted. 💔.

NBD… JK

Incite kept growing. Change
slowly felt possible. Within and
without. I met Khadijah. 💗. It
suddenly felt like work could
change things for others.
Progress was 🐢. At least not
🐌. I felt less insecure. More
whole. Life disrupted work. 🔄.

I found ❤️ and accepted all my
sides: 👩 👨. I started to ❤️
myself. Sometimes. More. 🤷. I
got 💍 and I 😿. 😍. Logic(s)
then arrived at Incite. It became
a place to💡 with others like
me. To reckon with the past.
With pain. To look to the 🔮.
To discover new possibilities. 🤯.

IMHO