Dear Cadence, Part One

This is the first in a series of posts I’ll hopefully turn into a book someday. It’s a story that’s particularly close to my heart, because it’s my story. I wanted to write down all my experiences and advice for my theoretical future daughter, so that she can read it someday when she’s not theoretical. I don’t know how regularly I’ll post from this series, mostly because I want to put my heart and soul into it to make sure it’s JUST RIGHT, but I wanted to share my progress on this project for you all to read and enjoy as well. If any part of my story resonates with you, feel free to leave a comment. I hope you love this project as much as I do.

Dear Cadence,

If you’re reading this, I’m dead.

Kidding! Well, maybe not. It depends on if I die before you get this little book of wisdom. When will I give it to you? Who knows! Maybe when you go to college. Maybe when the red peony blooms, if you know what I mean. Maybe I’ll read it to you on my deathbed. Maybe I’ll even publish it as a memoir-type thing, and we’ll both be famous someday, me as an author, and you as the recipient of my 30-ish years of knowledge.

As of writing this, you are not alive yet. You’re just a lil egg floating around in my ovary, probably. That, or you’re adopted. I’ll probably break that news to you before I give you this book, though. Or—more disappointingly, I die before I can birth/adopt you, in which case, I give full permission to my surviving family to publish whatever is written here. Seriously, it’s okay! The saddest stories are the ones that get irretrievably forgotten, and the least I can do is immortalize my crazy life in writing.

I’m not a celebrity or anyone of note, at least not yet. By the time you read this, I could be the frontwoman of a celebrated, beloved rock band, or an esteemed professor of music therapy, or a Folgers jar of ashes on your mantle (and I swear to God you better put me in a more respectable urn than that or I will haunt you). But I’m your mom (or maybe dad—your other mom and I didn’t want you to get us confused). I don’t even know you yet, but as my firstborn/possibly only daughter, you mean the absolute world to me. This little collection of anecdotes is more than just a bunch of autobiographical stories I want to preserve and share with you and the generations to come. It’s a book of hard-earned advice I’ve gained from three decades on this giant rock we call home.

So, with that in mind, here’s the life story of yours truly, the greatest woman to ever walk this planet (well, at least until you arrive!).

Here’s to the Future

I’m usually good at coming up with things to write about myself, but every now and then, I like answering the little prompts on here. Just for funsies, ya know? And this one felt fitting, considering the fact that at the time of writing, I recently turned 30 and have literally just finished coursework for my music therapy degree that took more than a decade to complete.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

I want to start this off with a song — “I Want It All” by one of my all-time favorite bands, Queen.

This song has been my mantra throughout the past few years, ever since I decided I was done sucking at life. Like, I was stuck in a marriage I rushed into for the wrong reasons, I had a burgeoning drinking problem, my mental health was in the toilet (as if it had ever been anywhere else), my music career was DOA, and I couldn’t even finish my damn degree, having dropped out of the program twice. I thank God for my brother. As complicated as our relationship is at times (for reasons that would take a whole other blog post), he’s the one who intervened when I was thisclose to driving my car into the fucking river.

I have a band that I really should talk about more on here called Wake Up Jamie, and one of our songs is called “I Hate My 20s.” It’s exactly what it says on the tin — a song about how much it sucks to be in your twenties. I didn’t write it, and I don’t sing it (my bandmate Hailey does), but I relate to as if I wrote it myself. Sometimes I feel like I wasted my youth being a crap sack of a person, but I think everyone feels that way to an extent. As much as we idolize being young, it’s kind of a struggle to figure things out, and most people take a minute to get it together.

That being said, I’m excited for these next ten years. I feel like I’m finally confident in who I am as a person and have some sort of direction in life. I don’t have it all figured out yet, but I’m a hell of a lot closer than I was ten years ago, when I was still wide-eyed and optimistic about everything. I’m still optimistic, just in a different way. I’ve seen how low life can get, and yet there’s always been a way out of it. There will always been rain, but it doesn’t last. The sun will rise in the morning.

I realize I still haven’t answered the actual question, but in ten years, I imagine myself finally living the dreams of my youth, with a life full of love and music. I want to have a family of sorts, with children of my own. I can already imagine a little curly-haired Cadence Amirah singing along to the songs written by me and my friends, her own mixtape of music from people who love her. My wife will stay home with the kids while I go to work at some prestigious university, performing research that shapes the world of music therapy. In addition, I’d like to have a private practice and recording studio where clients can work through their struggles while recording an album. I want to work with clients of all diagnoses and walks of life, but of course, there’s a special place in my heart for neurodivergent folks like myself. Maybe I’ll have an autistic client who gets to write music about his special interest in a world that wants him to shut up about it. Or maybe I’ll have an ADHD client who can revel in producing a song, the first thing she’s ever accomplished on her own after a lifetime of hopping from project to project without finishing anything. It will be rigorous work, but so rewarding. Aside from music therapy, I want to write songs and either perform them myself or send them off to Nashville or LA to be recorded by people more famous than me. I want to pen that one hit song that secures my legacy as a songwriter and a livelihood for my family.

I don’t know where I’ll live. I’d like to stay in the Midwest so I can remain close to my girlfriend, who I have every intention of building a life with as well, but the details are up in the air. Saugatuck is the goal, as a gay little vacation town in western Michigan, where we can have our idealistic lake house filled to the brim with oddities of every sort, from vintage Pokémon merchandise to colorful crystals of every size to a dinosaur skeleton. I’d commute to Western Michigan University every other day or so in order to teach or perform research, and have a humble studio in Saugatuck where I’ll spend most of my days. At night, I’ll go home and watch the moon on the water from my back porch and enjoy the life I’ve built for myself, sipping some Red Bull margaritas or nonalcoholic wine and playing guitar for my wife and kids.

I’m getting goosebumps writing this all out, and the crazy thing is, this can actually happen. I think back to when I just turned 20, how different my life looked from now. I imagined a day when I’d have my own little apartment and a significant other and a cat to share it with. I dreamed of having a band I considered family, just like the ones I saw on Behind the Music as a kid. I remember when I’d never set foot on a stage bigger than the corner of a coffeeshop, and we just played Arts Beats and Eats last summer! I’m exactly where I hoped I’d be ten years ago, and while not everything is perfect, I’m content with the way things are going. I think 20-year-old me would be pleased.

And ten years from now, I hope I feel the exact same way.

Let’s connect! Follow me @TheJessaJoyce on Instagram and don’t be a stranger! If you want to support the blog, feel free to donate whatever you can via CashApp (@TheJessaJoyce) or just share my content if it speaks to you. I appreciate it a lot!

Grace Culture: Why Cancel Culture Needs to Go

Everyone sucks. It’s a pretty well-established fact of life. I suck. You suck. Your mom sucks. Hilary Clinton sucks. Donald Trump sucks. The Queen of England sucked. Name your favourite or least favourite person alive, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that they definitely suck. The very first thing we learn to do upon exiting the womb is suck (in a literal sense, but also in a figurative sense). It’s in our human nature.

There’s an entire tirade in the Bible about this, actually. It’s particularly referring to the Jewish and Greek folks who would have engaged with this writing at the time, but you could swap in any ol’ demographic and get the same idea. Black or white, cis or trans, Christian or atheist, and anyone and everyone else. We. All. Suck.

“None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.

All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”
Romans 3:11-12

Recently, I’ve learned a lot of my favourite creators suck, too. And I’m not talking incredibly famous people, but people who are just like me, people who create and share things. These people are musicians and bloggers and writers who just so happened to reach the right amount of people to “make it,” whatever that even looks like. But the point is, I could be any one of them.

It’s exciting. It’s humbling. It’s scary.

One of my favourite YouTubers is apparently a nightmare to work with. Another took a picture with all her friends — who just so happened to be skinny, white-passing, and attractive by our narrow Euro-centric beauty conventions — and spun the post as body positivity. One of my favourite podcasts of all time got derailed because…I’m still not entirely sure. Stevie Nicks’ landmark song has a title that’s quite literally a racial slur. And I could list every infraction ever committed by my favourite guitarists, from John Mayer’s general fuckery to how Richie Sambora drove drunk with his daughter in the car. Even my beloved Chili Peppers aren’t innocent, sexually assaulting a fan in the early 90s and citing a porn star who was literally underage at the time she was active in the industry as a muse.

I’ve always wanted to be famous, ever since I was little and ran onstage at some show because I was mad the actresses were getting attention instead of me. I used to daydream at great length about becoming a rock star, crafting entire scenarios in my head about what my life and career would be like. I imagined the inevitable biopic that would be made about me, my internal dialogue becoming a narration of the story of my life from the perspective of someone who thought I was cool enough to make a movie about.

But at the same time, I don’t know if I can handle being famous. And that’s simply because I suck. Certainly not as much as some of the creators I mentioned above, but I still suck. I’ve said and done things I regret a lot, and I’m just lucky that I wasn’t in the spotlight at the time. Because I honestly don’t know if I could handle the criticism, even if it was justified. Especially if it was justified. I hate the feeling of being wrong, almost as much as I hate the idea of ever hurting anyone.

As a creator of any type, there’s so much pressure to be perfect, not just looks-wise but as a person as well. We need to be a role model. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I think creators should strive to be positive influences for their fans, and I think creators should be held accountable when they inevitably fuck up. Some of those things might be unforgivable. Should the allegations against Michael Jackson be true, for example, we definitely need to stop holding him up as an idol. Should we stop listening to his music? I think that’s an even more complicated issue that I’ll probably address in a future post. But for relatively benign “maybe I didn’t realise this was racist at the time but now I know better” kinds of problematic behaviour, I think we need more space for grace. Because God knows I’ll need it.

I want so badly to make waves as a musician or writer, but sometimes I find myself paralysed by the pressure to be above reproach in all things. What if something I posted ten years ago on Facebook resurfaces and shows me as a total asshole now? You have to put yourself out there to get any ounce of fame, but in the process, you open yourself up to so much scrutiny. And sometimes I wonder if I could handle that. I cry if someone looks at me funny (I describe myself as “the stereotypical Pisces” for good reason). I think I could handle the press or some anonymous Twitter denizen calling me ugly or untalented. But if someone attacked my character, something I take more seriously than my looks or even my art, I’d probably lose it.

I hate the term “cancel culture” because of its association with the anti-“woke” (read: anti-any media that’s not cishet white male) rhetoric, but I think it’s time we cancel cancel culture to an extent. Rather, we need a grace culture, one where people are free to fuck up and be able to redeem themselves. We need to have open conversations with each other about why we suck and how we can suck less in a way that’s not defensive or vilifying. We need to be open to learning from one another.

Exactly Where I’m Meant to Be

It doesn’t feel real.

But it is.

I’m so much closer to being a music therapist, more so than ever before, and it’s hitting me all at once.

My coursework is finished, save for a few loose ends, and just yesterday I had my graduation ceremony.

I don’t know what it was. Maybe it’s my hormones. Maybe it’s because I’m a big whiny Pisces. Or maybe, just maybe, it was the look of pride on my dad’s face as I walked down the aisle. But I cried. I never just cry, not on happy occasions. Like, I didn’t even cry on either of my wedding days. Something about this just felt so overwhelmingly right, though. Like I was finally where I was supposed to be this entire time, like my whole life led up to that moment.

And yet, I’m still mourning something. I don’t know what it is. Perhaps it’s the finality of it all. This is the end of a chapter that took well over a third of my life. Maybe I’m sad I spent the whole of my youth studying when I could have been traveling or starting a family or running away to Nashville to play in some band that might actually become famous. Maybe I’m sad I’ll never know what the other paths would have looked like. I’m not a Sim. I don’t get another play-through. I devoted my life to learning the art of music therapy, and that’s the road I’m on.

It is disheartening to think I might never be a rock star or a mom or a free-spirited hippie living in a converted van. But then I think back to the look on my dad’s face yesterday, the majestic piano leitmotif my professor composed in my honor, and how it felt singing my favorite song lyrics of all time as part of my graduation speech — “Show love with no remorse.”

Music therapy is academia. It’s science. It’s art. But perhaps most importantly, it’s love. It’s love of all of those things, but above all else, it’s love of humanity. It’s taking a divine gift that was given to us — the gift of music — and using it as a tool to help and heal. Maybe I’ll never get to hold a child of my own. Maybe I’ll never get to revel in the spotlight of the biggest stadium. Maybe I will someday. But I know that I haven’t wasted my youth as a music therapy student, because this is what I was put on this planet to do. I was created to use my gift to leave the world a better place than the way I found it. It’s my God-given calling.

And for the first time, I’m exactly where I need to be.

Pride & Joy: How God Lead Me INTO Being Queer

Another post I originally shared as a FB status but figured it warranted its own post on here, especially since I haven’t posted on the blog in a minute. It’s been a crazy few weeks of coursework but my classes are over after this upcoming week, so expect more ramblings on here soon!

I see people posting their “I was gay but THEN I FOUND JESUS” testimonies all the time, but never any “I found Jesus but THEN I WAS GAY” testimonies. So allow me to share mine.

I used to attend an evangelical megachurch, first in my teens and again when I reached my lowest low after graduation. I was so broken and jaded I needed somewhere I could call home, and the church of my youth seemed right. I started going back, got deeply involved in the music ministry, and even married a man with an intention of starting a family, because that’s what you were “supposed” to do. But I wasn’t truly happy. I had to drink wine just to make household chores bearable. I had such a bad mental breakdown I had to go to a psychiatric emergency facility. I isolated myself from the people I loved and tried so hard to break my own bones to fit into a box that didn’t feel right to me. Even my own mom saw that I was miserable.

The breaking point came when my church announced a conversion therapy class for teenage girls — while I was standing on the stage about to lead worship. I should have walked off that stage, and I still kick myself for not doing it in the moment. But it planted a seed — something wasn’t right. I started to realize I was one of those girls! I’d been attracted to people of every gender, but I had to crush the parts of me that weren’t straight because I wanted so desperately to fit in and be “normal” by these people’s standards.

I was tired. And so I came out.

I’m so glad I chose to live my truth as a pansexual woman. I ended up leaving the marriage I rushed into for the sake of “staying pure” and married my best friend, who I realized I was in love with the entire time. I have a family of fellow queerdos who are truer friends to me than anyone at that church I left. My blood family even sees how happy I am now and is happy for me! And I didn’t have to leave behind my faith in Christ to embrace my true self — I found an affirming church that accepted me and my gay and trans siblings for who they are.

Being queer and following Christ aren’t mutually exclusive things. My faith is stronger for having been tested. God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, and He truly blessed me with so much. I love who He made me to be, and I’m glad I can finally live in the light.

Feel free to share if my story reaches you in some way. I want the world to know it’s okay not to fit into the mold of American evangelical Christianity. God doesn’t love you any less. You are exactly who He created you to be ❤️

Think of the Children! (An Easter Manifesto)

I originally posted this on my Facebook and Instagram pages (@thejessajoyce, if you’re curious), but I wanted to share this brief little write-up here as well. It’s so important to get this message out there since more often than not, the theoretical future of society and the fight to better it is co-opted by straight, cis, white, non-disabled people in an effort to tear down people who are not like them. I want to present a counter-argument. If all lives truly matter, as many on the political right say, and we must “think of the children,” my future children should be considered as well. There is room for everyone at the table of life, and we need to remember that this Easter.

Reading this book (Feminist Queer Crip by Alison Kafer) at the suggestion of one of my favorite professors for my capstone project on autism, and it feels especially poignant in the days of #blacklivesmatter and #SaveTheChildren and #autismawarenessmonth and the recent fight against drag and transgender rights. The first chapter talks a lot about the Child — the personification of the future of society — who is often politicized and weaponized. Think of the children, people say. The image of the Child is more often than not a white cishet non-disabled child born to white cishet non-disabled parents. This Child absolutely matters. But I’m not interested in fighting for him, not because I don’t care about him, but because he already has enough people fighting for his right to exist in peace. Instead, I want to fight for my children.

In a few short years, I’ll likely have a child of my own. That child will likely have a disability of some sort, or rather, a difference that makes it harder to exist in a world that isn’t built for her. Considering my family history, she’ll likely be autistic or ADHD. Depending on our donor, she will likely be at least part black, and she’ll have queer parents who will support her should she eventually come to terms with her own queerness. And guess what? Her life will matter too. She should have a right to exist in peace alongside the theoretical Child described above. I want her to have a future too.

That’s why it’s so important to keep fighting for equality. I feel like it’s important to note that it’s Easter Sunday as I post this. I am a Christian through and through, despite the fact that I don’t “fit” the American Evangelical mold, and I firmly believe that Christ died for EVERYONE. Not just white Americans or straight people or cisgender people or able-bodied and able-minded people. We are all wonderfully made and we all should have a right to inhabit this beautiful planet. This post is a call to prayer and more importantly, a call to action. We need to be a light to this sometimes dark and scary world. We need to keep fighting the good fight.

To a Much Older Me

Write a letter to your 100-year-old self.

Dear Jess,

You’re 100. At least, hopefully you live that long. Or rather, we live that long. I’m you, only 30! Remember those days? When we were living in Clawson with Krubby, who is now probably a faded tattoo on your saggy thigh skin. When our parents were alive and you had Crass and Livvy and so many friends who are probably all gone now. God, I’m making myself cry just writing this. But I’m slowly learning that nothing lasts forever except love, and it’s better to have loved someone and lost them than to have never loved at all. It’s a hard truth to swallow, but I’m coming to terms with it.

I don’t know exactly what to say to a 100-year-old me, except that I hope we accomplished everything we set out to do. I hope we got to start that family and get those degrees and write the songs that changed the world. I hope when we’re gone, our legacy lingers long afterward. I hope you never lost your childlike wonder and big dreams, even after shouldering the weight of a century of life. I hope you still have imaginary friends who live in the universes you created in your head. I hope you finally got that “Dr.” in front of your name, which is definitely still Salisbury (we’re not making that mistake again). I hope you dyed your white hair pink and wear all the tattoos of memories we made with pride.

I hope you can look back and be proud of me.

It hasn’t been an easy journey, making it to 30 years, and I’m sure it hasn’t been easy making it to 100. I know so much has changed — change is the only certainty in life. But we’re strong enough and brave enough to weather whatever storm we may face. We made it through mental illness, betrayal, loss, regret, and more hurt than one should have to bear, and yet, we’re still here. We made it. Hell, at the time of writing this, I’m staring down the music therapy degree we’ve been working toward for twelve years. I did that. You did that. And who knows what else you’ve accomplished in the time since I wrote this little post!

Maybe you’re reading this from a nursing home, where you’re definitely the little old lady everyone wants to befriend. Or maybe you have that lake house you’ve always wished for, and you spend long evenings looking out on the water reminiscing with Cadence about all our adventures when she was little. Maybe global warming made the planet uninhabitable and we’re like, on the moon or dead or something. There’s no way to know for sure, and that’s both the scary and exciting part. I don’t know how the story ends, but as long as you lived your life to the fullest, I know it will be a happy ending.

There will only ever be one Jessica Joyce Salisbury, and as her story comes to an end, rest easy knowing that she’s content with the way it was written. Relish that feeling of completion.

May the rest of your days be filled with joy and happiness.

Love always,

Jess

Even If It Kills Me

TW: sexual assault

I write this from my hotel room at GLR, the annual music therapy conference for the Midwest-based students, practitioners, and academics. It’s hard to believe the last time I was at GLR, I was still legally married to my ex and COVID hadn’t yet happened.

So much has changed.

The last GLR I attended was in Cincinnati. I remember all too well. You might remember too, if you remember this post (HUGE FUCKING TRIGGER WARNING ON THAT ONE). That was the year my dream of becoming a music therapist was stolen from me, when the aftermath of the rape I experienced on that trip tainted the very field I longed to be part of. Suddenly, everything related to music therapy reminded me of the person who violated me. My mental health got worse. I started drinking heavily. Soon, I wasn’t able to keep up with the coursework, and I dropped all my classes.

I’d already left the music therapy program once, due to my mental health, but this seemed insurmountable. And reentering the program after that felt like pushing a boulder up a mountain with a toothpick. I’d already given up twice. Surely I was too damaged to ever be a real music therapist.

But I’m here. I’m still here.

As of writing this, I’m not only at the conference, but I’m gearing up for the prestigious Undergraduate Symposium, where I’ll be giving a presentation on music therapy and autism. All of my current grades are, by some miracle of God, in the A range. I’m meeting with my professor to discuss internships in a week, and I won a research fellowship that paid for my entire senior year, and then some.

It doesn’t seem real. I shouldn’t be here, but I am. And I owe it all to the people who have helped me through recovery — my wife, my family, my professors. And to myself. I fought like hell to get to a place where I’m staring down graduation at last, where I’m finally on the cusp of claiming the title of MT-BC for myself.

This GLR feels almost poetic. I’m back at a hotel not unlike the one I was assaulted at, but I feel safe. I feel whole. Everything has come full circle, and my dream of becoming a music therapist feels not only within reach, but no longer tainted by the hands that hurt me. I’m not going to let trauma steal the very reason I was put on this planet — to heal through music. I am not too damaged.

On my 30th birthday a few weeks back, dad said something that made me tear up a little. When he briefly died on the operating table after a massive heart attack, he said my then-very-young niece appeared to him and said he couldn’t die yet. But he finally told me the rest of the story.

She said he couldn’t die because he had to see me graduate.

I’m not turning back because this time, it’s personal. I love my dad — and myself — more than I hate my rapist. I’m going to get this degree and this certification in spite of everything. In the words of Motion City Soundtrack, I so wanna get back on track. I’ll do whatever it takes.

Even if it kills me.

So Long and Goodnight: How My Middle School BFF Shaped My Entire Life

Strap in, guys, gals, and enby pals. We’re in for an emotional roller coaster with this one.

This is your last warning. You *will* cry.

I think every thirteen-year-old girl has a chosen name. Think back to when you were thirteen and you wanted to be called, I don’t know, Renesmee or something. It was definitely inspired by something cringy like that. Me? I tried to get everyone to call me Sophitia, like the badass Greek sword-wielding action mom from the Soul Calibur series.

Definitely *not* a MILF (mother I’d like to fight)

No one called me Sophitia, of course, save for my dad (until my mom made him stop). Well, him and Chelsea. Or, shall I say, Helena.

Her cringy thirteen-year-old chosen name was Helena, like the My Chemical Romance song. She insisted it was pronounced “huh-lay-nah,” not “hel-en-uh.” True to the girl in the music video of the emo standard, she had pale skin and a tall but slight frame and dark hair and piercing blue eyes, all of which she took pride in. She was gorgeous and she knew, but you couldn’t help but love her nonetheless.

I don’t remember exactly how Chelsea and I met, but I remember her as an absolute spitfire who hurled herself into my life with the intensity of a tigress. She was spirited, witty, and strong-willed, the kind of girl who stood up for me in the face of notoriously cruel grade school bullies. For a solid two years, we were practically inseparable. Those years were filled with memories I’ll never forget. Like Thursday nights at my church’s youth group, getting all giddy over which cute guy talked to us. Or staying up late during sleepovers on my bedroom floor, telling each other stories until we fell asleep. Or editing our MySpaces together on my family’s computer, and the one time I got interrogated because my mom found “emo boys kissing” in my search history. Thanks for that, Chels.

Music was an integral part of our friendship. One of our favorite activities was dressing up like our favorite rock stars and putting on shows for ourselves. Being obsessed with Bon Jovi, I had us dress up like Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora. She was Richie because her hair was darker, even though I always liked him more. She’s the one who introduced me to the emo genre that defined my taste in music as I grew older. She loved this song called “Fer Sure” by The Medic Droid, and in the car she’d always sing “Kick off your stilettos and THROW THEM IN THE BACKSEAT” loud enough to obscure the fact that the actual lyrics were “fuck me in the backseat.” And of course, there was Helena and Sophitia, our cringy chosen names that doubled as our stage names. We would have these big dreams about someday starting a band together, and she wrote a little song with a melody that still gets stuck in my head to this day.

Something changed after a trip up north together, though. I asked if she had the sunscreen we bought while there and she accused me of accusing her of stealing it. What transpired was a platonic breakup worse than any of my romantic breakups have been. It’s such a stupid thing to ruin what was one of the most important friendships of my life. A girl’s BFF-ship at that transitional age of late preteendom is so important, and just like that, I lost her.

What followed was radio silence for years. I watched her grow up from afar. She joined the military, married, and had a son. Me, I went to college and had a couple of rock bands that didn’t work out. But as adults, she reached out to me and extended the olive branch, and we reconnected over our shared spiritual goals and, of course, music.

We were never as close as we were as kids, though, because shortly after we reconnected, a little global health crisis called COVID-19 happened, and all our plans to meet up fell through.

She then had a private health crisis of her own. On the warmest Christmas morning in memory, I got a text from one of our old mutual friends.

“Hey Jess, I’m so sorry to hear about Chelsea.”

I couldn’t even cry. I was numb. All these memories came flooding back like a tidal wave. I ran to my guitar and immediately started strumming the old song she wrote, and suddenly, I knew what I had to do. That day, I turned her melody into a full song she’d be proud of.

My only regret is she’ll never get to hear it.

Life is so short, and we take moments with our loved ones for granted. The next time you hang out with your best friend could be your last, and you wouldn’t even know. So cherish every memory you get, because in the end, that’s all we can carry with us through life, and those memories are what carry us through life.

So long and goodnight, my dearest friend. I’m a better person for having known you.

This Shit is Not Okay

I don’t even have a witty title for this. I’m so fucking beyond done with the alt-right, conservative Christendom, and their stranglehold on American politics. I don’t like getting political on here — I’d rather write about music and life hacks and inspiring things — but I can’t be silent about this shit.

There are calls to eradicate trans people. I wish I was exaggerating, but let’s hear the actual words of Michael Knowles, who spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday.

“For the good of society … transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely — the whole preposterous ideology, at every level.”

Oh, he can’t literally mean that, right? He just wants to ban drag shows. Never mind that the child beauty pageant world is a helluva lot more exploitative (and full of…dare I say…groomers). Or that more priests have molested children than drag queens. Masculine bodies in dresses are so scary, though.

That’s not what this fuckwad is talking about, though. Let him clarify.

“I called to ban transgenderism entirely … They said that I was calling for the extermination of transgender people. They said I was calling for a genocide … One, I don’t know how you could have a genocide of transgender people because genocide refers to genes, it refers to genetics, it refers to biology.”

So it’s not a genocide…because you’re not trying to eliminate a particular gene? But you’re cool with literally erasing an entire group of people? That’s not the part you want to backtrack on? Let’s hear more from this wadded up Subway napkin of a human being.

“Nobody is calling to exterminate anybody, because the other problem with that statement is that transgender people is not a real ontological category — it’s not a legitimate category of being. There are people who think that they are the wrong sex, but they are mistaken. They’re laboring under a delusion. And so we need to correct that delusion.”

And so we need to correct that delusion. Do tell, how do you plan on correcting that delusion? Surely it’s not through conversion therapy, which is proven to be ineffective and harmful. What’s the other option, die? Because it’s starting to seem like that’s what you want. I’m not even going to link to the nasty transphobic shit I’ve seen on the internet. I’d rather not dignify the shitstains who comment “41 percent” on pictures of trans folks just living their lives. But it’s obvious. If they can’t shut the fuck up and live their lives as their assigned gender, you want them dead.

You might say I don’t have a horse in this race. I’m not trans. I’m a cisgender woman. And yet somehow, the majority of the people I associate with are trans. My girlfriend is a trans woman. My three closest friends are trans women. My spiritual mentor is a trans woman. And when you talk shit about hurting them, you hurt me. Maybe that doesn’t matter to you. I’m just some chick with a blog, whatever. But you don’t know which of your loved ones could still be in the closet. You don’t know if your kid or parent or sibling or best friend has been struggling with their gender identity, and why would they let you in on that information if they were? You’re an asshole.

I wish I could humanize trans people in a way that would make their lives matter to you. I wish you could hear Tegan’s obnoxious laugh, or experience Pippa’s warm hugs. I wish you could feel the way Livvy makes me feel when her hand is in mine. I wish you would realize that these people are just like you. They have dreams and unique talents and personalities. They’re not some boogeyman trying to sneak into your daughter’s locker room or beat her swimming record. (And God knows no one would intentionally be in women’s sports, which are notoriously underpublicized and underfunded.)

I don’t even know how to end this. I’m just tired. I’m tired of folks not caring that literal genocidal rhetoric is being spewed by the people in power. I’m tired of worrying about my loved ones becoming victims of hate crimes. I’m tired of this shit being normalized. I’m so, so fucking tired.