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I love you.

I thank you.

These are some words for all of you to whom I owe dozens of epiphanies, hundreds of hugs, and thousands of love whispers. Please don’t feel obliged to read all of this, just what is helpful.

I’m sitting here on the bed I grew up in facing my wall-length mirrored closet and I thank God I no longer see my 16-year-old self staring back at me. The person I see reflected back at me is someone unbelievably thankful that they has had the support and love they needed to become the person they is in this very moment. All I can think about is wanting to be back in Claremont with you, my beautiful friends and activists- my beautiful community. A community that is constantly inspiring me to take part in beautiful and painful formative experiences. 

I came into this semester scared shitless. I might not have shown it but I had no idea what I was doing. So many people who had come to define my experience in Claremont had graduated, returned home to Europe, were studying abroad, or transferred. I pretended as best I could that none of their absences bothered me, but loneliness set in like an old friend making itself ready for a long stay. 

I will never understand the “truth” of this semester nor do I want to. All I know is that I have changed into the person I want to be by allowing myself to simply live and breath among all of you. I have stopped trying to ascribe meaning and narrative to every experience or emotion in my life and instead have tried to allow for experiences and emotions to flow through me at an easy pace, taking as much time to process as need be.

Many of you are old friends who began this journey of constant revelation with me years ago and many of you are friends I fell in love with this semester. Beware: I fully intend to continue falling. 

I feel so lucky to have been part of so many vitally vibrant, justice-seeking, paradigm shifting communities: QQAMP, the QRC, Racial Politics of Teaching, Queer Theater Activism, Feminisms in Community, Drunk On Dance, the Tree house, Queer Burlesque, YCCA and more. I am constantly astounded by your willingness to sacrifice comfort, sleep, and safety for what you believe in. Thank you for being the most glorious role models a person could ever dream of having. 

I am so honored that I was given the opportunity to take you into my heart. It is a courageous act to love, and you are all so brave. 

I have learned about the wrinkles of the world from you. Thank you to everyone who sat down with me in the Motley to have a life altering conversation or squeezed my hand while something problematic happened during class or got naked and danced and laughed with me or came to our fabulous queer parties or fed me stories on a long road trip or cuddled with me in my ginormous bed or listened to my heart troubles. Thanks to your challenging questions and your radical honesty I am constantly reunderstanding connection, love, privilege, accountability, communication, and community. 

I especially want to thank you for supporting me as I began asking people to use the pronoun they/them with me. Gender is a wondrous magical thing but it can also tear your whole world apart. Using your love I am trying to sew my world together, always making sure to leave extra thread so I can continuously add to this splendid mess.

I look forward to a lifetime of loving, dancing, working, learning, touching, and laughing with you.

Angie