Part 2: Disclosures and Decisions

Do I dare
Disturb the universe
— T.S. Elliot

I want to be two people at once.
One runs away.
― Peter Heller

I remember the lingering smell of birthday candle smoke that arose above the plate of two-tiered confection before me and being encircled by the bright smiles and eyes of my immediate family sitting around the table in front of me.

It was my first COVID birthday. I was turning the un-special age of 24, and it appeared to be rather unremarkable—and yet, of all birthdays, it is perhaps the most meaningful birthday I’ve ever had.

After graduation, in the fall of 2019, I decided to move back home to New Mexico and be close to family for a year while I tried to answer the inconvenient question posed by my enduring queerness of “what now?”