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One Year Later
2026-09-02 - hearthsinger
The last time I tried to get this site off the ground I was in the throes of moving from the west coast of the US back to Texas, where I'd grown up. This was not a move that I was doing for any particularly good reasons, and it really could not have come at a worse time.
There is no part of me that has any fondness for the area I grew up in. The state itself has few redeeming qualities. The political environment is nightmarish for any queer person, let alone someone like myself who, at the time, was just coming to terms with their queerness. The weather sucks ass. The drivers (and you are basically required to drive to get anywhere) are all dogshit. In fact the only redeeming aspect was my proximity to a random outcropping of japanese, korean, and chinese grocery stores and shops.
Knowing I could still visit a Kinokuniya was probably the only thing that kept me going, frankly.
That lasted for about 9 months before I basically fully lost it and had to leave. I managed to negotiate some relocation with my work, who had been trying to get me to work in person for quite some time, to move out to new england. At the time I figured "any port in a storm," and threw all my shit back into moving boxes, packed up my cats, and flew across the country for the second time in a year chasing after all my worldly posessions.
Today (really yesterday but whatever) marks a year since I made the trip, and I genuinely cannot imagine a world in which I hadn't. So many wonderful and positive things have happened to me in that time. I've met so many amazing people, reconnected with old friends that managed to end up in this same neck of the woods, achieved a ton of personal and professional goals, and things are continuing to look upwards.
The world outside is pretty bleak - the mental state of anyone with progressive politics in the United States right now is vibrating wildly between smiling and sighing longingly at videos of Zohran Mamdani and going insane. But as much as I want to be a cynical bitch I find that I do actually have hope for the future. For myself, for my loved ones, and ultimately I do feel hopeful for this world.
I'm sure that feeling is somewhat fleeting and I could just be at the peak of a "we're so back" phase, but so long as I'm here I might as well relish in it.
I'll see you all in the "it's so over" later on, but for now, things are looking pretty bright!