#alongside it came an overwhelming love and my own loneliness wasn't just a weight but a frustration

[naivety]

this doesn't even have to do with the holidays really but i don't think people realize what kind of supreme loneliness trans people can experience, especially trans people trapped in isolated rural areas. i didn't even fully grasp it myself until i thought of myself as trans, not just nonbinary, despite my many trans friends. suddenly news headlines and articles and comments from coworkers don't just feel horrible because they're directed at people i care about, but now furthermore so severely something that's hard to put into words. over time, without really noticing, i've begun to experience a deeper kind of existential fatigue than i was used to due to so many other parts of life as we know it. as the new year approaches, it feels all too easy to despair at how many of our trans brothers and sisters and siblings won't be facing 2023 with us, and how hard it is still to face it ourselves. at this point survival alone is rebellion and the fire of that is one of the things getting me through this winter, and i can only hope the same can be said for others, but please don't forget to check in on your trans friends and family this time of year. whether or not the holidays are celebrated, many are still with or think of family and community and find themselves too often alone. if you're one of them, i can only say i see you, and i think of you often. we are not alone even when we're most alone, there are so many of us reaching out in our hearts and minds to lift each other up, those still here with us now and those who came and went far before us. we will find our people and we will feel at home, and most of all we are worth the struggle and more to keep putting one foot in front of the other until the sun rises on a new year, and the next one, and the one after that. remember that we are divine and we divinely love and we are divinely loved. remember that we belong here just as much as anyone else, not by any condition but being here in the first place. you are here, we are still here, and we always will be, and that's something worth celebrating if nothing else as this year comes to a close and a new one opens, and at every moment you remember it.