Yes! It is okay to dig around in the mud and muck for a while until you strike gold. It's okay to be creating something and not know where it is headed yet. We have forgotten what this can look like in real time, and seeing someone else to it helps us all breathe a little easier too. I feel similar coming back into America, looking around and saying 'okay who am I now?' Keep flailing around, you will find what you are looking for :) even if it is messy.
Yes. Goddam it yes. I am sitting here doing the same, wrestling with a piece about Christmas and cultural/family homelessness, and I keep wanting to throw it across the room because I can’t tell yet what it is I’m trying to say, but there’s something inside the urge that is trying to claim something powerful, something that has kept me alive through the last 9 years of hell.
I realized yesterday that substack reminds me of the early days of tumblr (before it was utterly ruined), when it felt like I could wander around and discover real people and interesting little thoughts and snippets and conversations and images and everything wasn’t perfectly polished and a coherent brand, it was real people having fun and geeking out over what they loved. It felt like a real PLACE. A place where people figured things out.
Keep figuring things out. Keep claiming what’s yours. It’s more interesting than cohesive perfection.
Thank you Allison. I’m going to keep working on it… it’s sifting so many complicated and painful memories from me, I keep feeling so lost. But I think that’s why writers need other writers. We need people who know the trenches, who cheer us on, because they understand from the inside how much we have to risk to put ourselves on the page.
The posts that feel the most risky are usually the ones other people identify with the most. I hope you have a healthy journey finishing this piece (or have a happy moment where you realize it can go into the drafts folder for now).
Thanks Danny. It’s a way of thinking about my experience of leaving various circles of belonging… leaving my family’s religion of fundamentalist Christianity in my early 20s, then in my mid 30s realizing I was gay and did not belong in the dominant culture of heteronormativity, and how those losses circle back around at times like the holidays in complex multilayered ways, really complicated kinds of grief. Because you lose access to the culture you were raised in, and you don’t belong there anymore, but you don’t have other cultural traditions to replace it with, at least not ones that you have potent childhood memories of. So it’s this homelessness that you carry with you, and it’s very deep work to figure out how to start building your own home without a felt lineage to turn to.
In a very odd way I can relate, I left Hong Kong as a teenager and fully embraced my new normal/new culture. I do feel like I’m sitting on the outside when I’m with my family.
Yes, I think an immigrant experience is absolutely another totally legitimate version of this. That outsider feeling, not quite belonging in the old culture, and not always fitting in the new one.
Yes! It is okay to dig around in the mud and muck for a while until you strike gold. It's okay to be creating something and not know where it is headed yet. We have forgotten what this can look like in real time, and seeing someone else to it helps us all breathe a little easier too. I feel similar coming back into America, looking around and saying 'okay who am I now?' Keep flailing around, you will find what you are looking for :) even if it is messy.
What is life but self discovery 🫶
You're absolutely right: we've forgotten what finding ourselves looks like in real time! Thanks for being here and witnessing the flailing ;)
Yes. Goddam it yes. I am sitting here doing the same, wrestling with a piece about Christmas and cultural/family homelessness, and I keep wanting to throw it across the room because I can’t tell yet what it is I’m trying to say, but there’s something inside the urge that is trying to claim something powerful, something that has kept me alive through the last 9 years of hell.
I realized yesterday that substack reminds me of the early days of tumblr (before it was utterly ruined), when it felt like I could wander around and discover real people and interesting little thoughts and snippets and conversations and images and everything wasn’t perfectly polished and a coherent brand, it was real people having fun and geeking out over what they loved. It felt like a real PLACE. A place where people figured things out.
Keep figuring things out. Keep claiming what’s yours. It’s more interesting than cohesive perfection.
The realness is absolutely my favorite part of being in this space. Thank you for showing up here and encouraging me to just keep writing.
I look forward to reading your Christmas homelessness post <3 I think I can relate to that much more this year than ever before.
Thank you Allison. I’m going to keep working on it… it’s sifting so many complicated and painful memories from me, I keep feeling so lost. But I think that’s why writers need other writers. We need people who know the trenches, who cheer us on, because they understand from the inside how much we have to risk to put ourselves on the page.
The posts that feel the most risky are usually the ones other people identify with the most. I hope you have a healthy journey finishing this piece (or have a happy moment where you realize it can go into the drafts folder for now).
I loved what you shared. Although what does cultural/family homelessness mean?
Thanks Danny. It’s a way of thinking about my experience of leaving various circles of belonging… leaving my family’s religion of fundamentalist Christianity in my early 20s, then in my mid 30s realizing I was gay and did not belong in the dominant culture of heteronormativity, and how those losses circle back around at times like the holidays in complex multilayered ways, really complicated kinds of grief. Because you lose access to the culture you were raised in, and you don’t belong there anymore, but you don’t have other cultural traditions to replace it with, at least not ones that you have potent childhood memories of. So it’s this homelessness that you carry with you, and it’s very deep work to figure out how to start building your own home without a felt lineage to turn to.
In a very odd way I can relate, I left Hong Kong as a teenager and fully embraced my new normal/new culture. I do feel like I’m sitting on the outside when I’m with my family.
Yes, I think an immigrant experience is absolutely another totally legitimate version of this. That outsider feeling, not quite belonging in the old culture, and not always fitting in the new one.
You have a voice, the world NEEDS to hear it.
Your reclamation is powerful.
You are powerful.
❤️
a heart emoji doesn't encompass it all, but it'll have to do