Hey there Internet Peeps! It’s A. K. again.. I’ve been thinking a lot about failure lately. I always feel like I’m failing. Largely because I still base my metrics off of my mother’s scales. I got a 96% on my Statistics midterm. It’s still an A. But somehow, I felt like I had failed because it wasn’t 100%. When I told my sister, she said it was because our mom would’ve said, “Why didn’t you get 100?” or something along those lines. I’ve always felt like a failure. Like I wasn’t doing enough. Now I still feel like a failure. I expressed to my incredibly intelligent and caring wife these feelings that I’m going to fail. That I’m a failure already. She asked me to point out when I had failed, when it was not because of fucked up extenuating circumstances at home. She asked me to point out when I had failed since we had been together. Because she couldn’t think of anything. I sat, dumbfounded, tears streaming down my face. Do I really just think I’m a failure because my mom implanted that in my head?
I’m really stressed, maybe overthinking this Newsletter idea of mine. I want to research and write awesome things from History. I want it to be History Uncensored. A lot of Gay and Lesbian and Trans History. But other stuff too. There’s so much interesting stuff that’s happened. I want the Newsletter to be the correspondence for The Witches’ Guild, too. So, there will definitely be a witchy vibe to it. What I’m afraid of is that no one will read it. I’ll research and write it out and there will be no need to print it. No wax seals to pour and stamp. No envelopes to address. Because there will be nowhere to send them. I have about a month. I know a few people that have said they would read it. Family mostly… My goal, though, is to reach a broader audience. To grow an audience. To get people interested and informed and excited about the events of the past because they’re still relevant today.
I have a feeling that Trans history will be the focus at first, in one way or another, because it needs to be. Because Trans people have been around since the dawn of time and it’s crazy to me that they’re trying to erase them. Us. I fall under the Trans umbrella. For those that can’t tell from my previous posts, or haven’t read them, I’m nonbinary. Some days I feel more Trans than others. But I very much fall into that category. To have the president of your country say you don’t exist. To have the gender marker on all your documentation, “X”, suddenly be invalid. To not know if your passport is valid when you have an international trip coming up. It’s maddening. It’s heartbreaking. Mostly, it’s infuriating.
The only way I know how to do something is to write. So, I have my little blog. Where I process my trauma. But also talk about the issues that mean a lot to me. But I want to expand it to the Newsletter. I want to put more information out there. Historical information. Because there’s power in knowing the past. I have a Gay and Lesbian History book. I love the edition I just got because there’s actually pictures in there. Great pictures from history. Of old timey gays and lesbians and trans people living their lives as best they could. I want to find more resources like this. Maybe online resources will be easier. There don’t seem to be a lot of books like this one by Neil Miller. Maybe one day I’ll write my own LGBTQ+ History book so there will at least be one more. But I’ll go further back than 1869. Because that’s just when the term “homosexuality” came onto the scene, according to said history book. But we’ve been here the whole time.
Will I fail? Maybe… But I have to try. I have to have this lofty goal. Among all my other lofty goals. Because it’s important to me. But bigger than that, it’s important to have the information out there. I remember what it was like for me to find that gay history book in the bookstore. The elation I felt. I felt seen. Validated as a human being. Here was MY history in a book. If I can do that for someone else, why shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t I do that with this Newsletter? And who cares if my mom thinks I’m a failure. SHE’S a failure! And she’s dead. So, who cares what she thinks anymore. She can’t hurt me anymore.
Well, I guess that’s enough for today, Internet friends. Don’t forget to like and subscribe. Those actions really do help me. So please don’t forget to do it if you enjoy my writing or if you want to make me smile. All it takes is liking this post. And putting your email address up in that subscribe box. Then you’ll get me delivered directly to your email. No spam. Just my blog posts. I appreciate you reading to the end. Leave a comment, too. That would really make my day. Ok. That’s really all for now.
-A. K.
A. K. Fitzgerald 