Max said, “I remember Rob Gerring said to me something like ‘So you know your sister is trying to come out as bisexual? I think she’s just doing it for attention.'” My brother paused for effect: “Robbie Gerring! The gayest kid in the closet at Maple Grove.” He really, really was.

The irony. The difficulty of this truth of self hatred. The truth of the closet. It was lost on neither of us. We laughed, because we’re adults. The horrors of high school are long, long passed. I am out now, and I hope Robbie is too.

This morning I woke up and cried.

So many people I care about are in pain. It seems like we’re all in a more complex, grown up stage of life, but it also seems like the world is burning around us.

Have things gotten more difficult or have we simply grown more aware?

What a bizarre loneliness: when everyone who matters is busy struggling to heal themselves. To cope. To spend one day without being triggered.

And everyone else doesn’t care.

The weather is absolutely gorgeous.

I can think of at least five people I would murder with my own hands if I could.

I can think of many, many more I would heal with my own hands if they’d let me.

I can think of not much else.

I don’t know who needs to read this small, tentative reach into the void.

Directly from my heart, it comes: you are not alone.

Do you wanna hold hands and brave this burning world together?

Let’s love and light it on fire.