23 Notes from 2023

an ode to the worst year yet

Dec 31, 2023

I feel similarly about new years and birthdays. Every time one comes around, I’m shocked to witness it, the passing of time. Crip time is easier to identify in the daily and weekly. It’s insomnia and dreaded mornings. It’s afternoons spent in bed. It’s breakfasts eaten at bedtime, and it’s essays written days later than they should have been. It’s hours spent on the tile floor of a bathroom. It’s forgetting to respond to a text until days later. Crip time stretches and warps minutes and hours, making markers of past time a little unfathomable. I do not think I will ever stop being shocked to see another year of life - shocked my body is still around, shocked that my mind hasn’t crumbled under the weight of pain, shocked that I haven’t given in to the fatigue.

It is a marvel to witness the passing of time, and I’m teaching myself to practice gratitude while doing so. 2023 was the worst year of my life, yet here I am, writing a newsletter full of mostly lovely things, relishing the brief break from school, and listening to an album that came out this year. I rang in 2023 listening to my grandmother over a baby monitor positioned next to my bed. I’ll be ringing in 2024 in my own bed, letting myself rest and hope for the year to come.

Without further ado, here are 23 things (lessons, moments, wins) from 2023.

1. It’s never too late to change your mind. I can always learn something new, try something again, and shift my understanding. For years, I swore that I would never return to college. I let myself harden my heartbreak into stubborn refusal, but this year I softened it. I made a choice I didn’t want to or think I could, and I think that’s a type of bravery.

2. Caregiving is the hardest, most meaningful thing I have done and ever will do. I have cherished care work as a concept for as long as I’ve known the words, but this year allowed me to practice it in a way that changed me. Staying with my grandparents, caring for them, and loving them grounded me. It also untethered me and shattered me. It was brutal and it required everything I had to give and then some, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. Don’t just tell your people that you love them. Show them.

3. Calls are sometimes better than texts. Phone calls helped me cling to community during a lonely year.

4. Rediscovering a childhood passion is like a constant sugar rush. It is, as the people say, healing for one’s inner child. (This is about me falling back in love with women’s soccer and now spending my very limited free time Googling game times for twenty-odd teams and keeping up with the gossip. I even started listening to sports podcasts. Sports. Podcasts.)

Autumn looks over their shoulder at a soccer field before a USWNT game. They’re wearing a Megan Rapinoe jersey and a baseball cap.

5. Physical therapy works, and devoting time to stretching and strengthening my muscles is a gift to my body. Slow movement is still rewarding, important movement.

6. New Orleans is an excellent city with lovely people and top notch trees. My favorite new city visited in 2023.

7. A functional desk setup is imperative. I knew that going back to school would be difficult, but I never imagined it would consume every spare waking hour in the way that it has. The right keyboard (I had to try two to find the one that minimizes hand pain,) a riser for my laptop, and a second monitor with a larger screen saved me this semester.

8. Planners are not, as originally felt, a waste of space, time, and paper. My planner and all of its color coded reminders also saved me this semester.

9. It is worth spending an extra amount of money for a necessary thing that functions the way it ought to. What I mean by this is that I spent an extra $7 to replace my broken can opener that left my hands unmovable the day after use. Invest in good basics when you need them. It makes a difference.

10. Every single person with an IUD is so fucking tough because, as someone with a pain tolerance that can only be described as similar to that of someone possessed by a demon, that shit fucking hurts. There’s a type of pain that can only be described using expletives, and that’s how I feel about IUD insertion and the resulting months of agony.

11. The American health care system is broken. I have always known this, and yet each year reminds me in a new and completely unfathomable way. This year it came in the form of being charged thousands of dollars for required gynecological care and pain psychology appointments that kept me from driving my car off a cliff.

A mirror selfie Autumn took post-appointment, looking like they want to either murder someone or cry, likely both. They’re wearing a black and white checkered sweater vest and a black face mask.

12. I got my first binder! (This is not me being very passionate about stationary. My planner’s moment was #8.) I am endlessly curious about my relationship with gender and expression. Every year I feel a little different. In the past, I spent these years straying further from what feels right in attempts to fit societal (cishet) standards. This year I think I’ve started to reverse that.

13. Dating apps in small-ish town Minnesota are futile, but the stories that come from the first dates are entertaining. One involved being coerced into singing Kelly Clarkson’s “Stronger” into the mic at a very minor league baseball game. What doesn’t kill you makes for good comedic material.

14. TikTok is Bad for my brain, and I cannot have it on my phone. 2024 is the year of finally decreasing my screen time and establishing firmer social media boundaries.

15. Weed is great. Cheers to Minnesota for legalization.

16. I love public speaking. When I was in middle school, my voice shook so badly while giving a book report presentation that a classmate congratulated me on my acting skills, convinced I was about to cry. Child Autumn never could have imagined being flown to Canada (my first time out of the country!) and paid to give lectures (that I thoroughly enjoyed giving!) about disability (my absolute favorite thing to run my mouth about!)

17. I will do quite literally anything to save a buck. This included walking along the side of a Canadian highway with no sidewalk, luggage dragging through the mud behind me, hoping I didn’t get steamrolled by a car, because I didn’t want to pay for an Uber. Next time, I should just get the Uber.

18. Saying “howdy” is a sincerely immaculate greeting.

19. Thus far, my most valuable class has been Negotiations, which reaffirmed that I am a stubborn, competitive little nerd. My skills have been used to get 100 extra dollars from a vibrator company. Thanks college.

20. I would die for Sam Kerr.

21. Bodies are weird, unpredictable things. This year I ran farther than I thought possible - 9 whole miles! - and had days where I could barely walk. I’m learning to roll with the punches, stretch myself when I can, and embrace what each day brings me. The alternating strength and weakness of my body is human, not faulty.

22. Heirloom tomatoes are really something special. I love those funky little farmers market finds.

A white hand with pink painted nails holds a red and green heirloom tomato in front of a pothos plant and a stack of cookbooks.

23. Books remain rad. It was a great reading year. Top 10 list coming soon.

It is impossible to reflect back on this year and the year to come without thinking of Palestinians. They are facing endless violence, trauma, hunger, and grief. America is complicit in the genocide Israel is committing, and as an American, I won’t look away from my complicity. May we all continue wishing for, speaking about, and supporting a free Palestine in 2024. I will continue contacting my representatives, amplifying Palestinian voices, and practicing BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions.)

I hope that your 2024 is whatever you need it to be. I hope that you give yourself grace, remain defiant in the face of January’s diet culture saturation, and find lessons and things to love whenever possible.

Thanks for being here.