Okay, two announcements. FIRST: 🚨 I ... dyed my hair. 🧑🏾🦰🚨 Second: I ... got a promotion. • Not to spend too long on the ups and downs in this thing we call life, but ... my grandmother was gravely sick from COVID in the spring. While she recovered, my friend Derek passed away, and I had no one else to grieve with. Nearly every single friend I had was gone. On top of that, I had people discriminating against me at every turn: trying to get paid, looking for work, sharing my work, trying to write about my experiences. I cried every day for weeks. So it’s important for me to tell it. I still managed to survive, and take care of my grandmother through two hospitalizations on my own (did I mention us not having a front door for a week?), and publish hundreds of articles, and make it through furloughs and pay cuts and late payments, and keep a place of my own. But, in the end, I survived, and that’s the biggest 🖕🏾 I can give to the world that didn’t want me to. • Working @lgbtqnation is the honor of a lifetime. Being a full-time editor at 23 in an industry that’s told me no at almost every corner is honestly all I had wanted. Thank you to everybody there that makes this possible. • I couldn’t have done this without the JOCs I’ve had the pleasure of e-meeting (they know who they are, y’all are the best), my fellow @studyhall_xyz-ers , and my family & real friends that helped me get here (my sisters @zoobiana + @uwill_nvr4getme who did my hair, my blood brother @sha_rackzz, and chosen brothers @daoriginaldon @ezthetics_ @liiightone @blaqueword, @musical_wordsmith whose put up with me all year, plus everyone that there isn’t space to tag) P.S., I swear I am no longer apologizing for intentional things after this moment, but I am actually sorry if I haven’t sent that email, DM, article, or update. 😭✌🏾 https://www.instagram.com/p/CI3biYDHjQx/?igshid=1o11hhsbdxl3p
