Rediscovering My Community in 2021

Happy New Year all! This is a time when I sit down and start to think about my successes and failures of the last year and what my hopes and goals are for the next year. When I did this last year I had no idea what 2020 would bring. I blithely made predictions and resolutions and for the most part, nothing turned out as I expected it to. I imagine that this feeling is nearly universal.

As I sit down to try again, I find that my goals have changed significantly.

My goals for 2020 had a lot to do with personal growth, and although I didn’t exactly succeed in the way I had hoped, I did more or less meet them. I had to reimagine what success meant for each of my resolutions, but I did succeed in my own way and so I’m claiming a victory. One of my lessons of 2020 was to take the victories where you can find them, because we all need a win.

This year I realized that my musings about 2021 have all been about community, which is hardly surprising. So here are a few things that I look forward to this year.

Seeing My Grandmother

Like many people in the queer community, my relationship with my more conservative family members is complicated. I am bi and poly. My husband is bi and poly. I work for bi.org and I write about myself and my relationships. There is no keeping any of this a secret and I haven’t really tried, I love living my truth. I have elected to keep my distance from a lot of my extended family because I know that they have their own complicated feelings about my life.

This past year my grandmother’s health has begun to deteriorate and having the choice to see her taken away from me, has made me want to say goodbye one last time. She will never be okay with who I am, but I am willing to grin and bear it for one more hug.

IRL Pride, But Also Virtual Pride

I am an introvert who is easily overstimulated. Just ask my husband about the famous crying in Costco incident. One of the joys of growing older is being able to control my environment more and avoid situations that might overwhelm me. This means that Pride has always been a bit of a mixed bag for me. On the one hand PRIDE!!! On the other hand so many people, so much noise, so little sleep. I think because I’ve attended so many Pride celebrations, I’ve also started to become frustrated by the fact that they are inaccessible to many people. People with physical disabilities, people like me who are easily overwhelmed, people who live in small or conservative communities that don’t host Prides, people who can’t afford the often prohibitively expensive festival fees, people who work weekends, and I’m sure all kinds of other folks don’t get the joy of these festivities.

I have learned ways to deal with the sometimes overwhelming nature of Pride, which include just not going some years. This year I’m going to be so excited to hug my community both literally and figuratively and can’t wait to enjoy the thumpa thumpa and rain of glitter that is Pride. I would also love to see some of the virtual Pride events created by the necessity of 2020 continue for all of those who can’t participate in the dancing in the streets. 2021 seems like an opportunity to make parts of Pride accessible to anyone with an internet connection.

Running With People

I signed up for two races in 2020 and both were canceled, as well they should have been. My running buddy and I still managed to run the half marathon distance this year, calling each other from the start and finish lines of our virtual races. My roommate and dog cheered me along my route and I am so proud of myself for doing something that seemed impossible a year ago.

Now I’m ready to be part of a larger running community. I’m still signed up for the same races, hopefully, it will be safe to have them in person this year. My big dream for 2021 isn’t to run farther or faster, instead, I want to run with people. Over the next 10 years, my running buddy and I are going to attempt to run a race in every state in the U.S. Please let me know if you have any suggestions for great races @taliaasquires.

Expanding bi.org

I’ve been at bi.org for about 5 years and I’m really proud of what I’ve helped to build in that time. That doesn’t mean that it’s time for us to rest on our laurels though. My big goal for 2021 is to start publishing Spanish language content. It’s something that I’ve been working on for a little while and wanted to launch in 2020, but 2020 happened… With a little bit of luck though, bi.org will be bilingual sometime next year!

So there it is. Not quite resolutions, not quite goals, mostly my big hopes for 2021. I don’t know if I’ll be able to achieve these as I imagine them now, I suspect that I won’t, but if nothing else, 2020 has taught me to take my victories as I find them.

Happy New Year my lovely bi community and let us know some of your hopes and goals for 2021.