To My Sparrow, With Love: My best friend is not just a best friend. I know, I know, everyone says that, but truly, she is everything. My chosen sister, my best friend, the platonic love of my life, Lena Trask-Trafton, taught me how to be a human. When I first met her, I was a disaster. COVID had set in; a cascade of 'nope!' to my life plans up to that point. My mental health was getting worse with each passing day. I had no idea what I liked, what I needed, who I was. But somehow, this 14 year-old girl who had her own fair share of problems managed to break through all that. I wouldn't say it was love at first sight. Maybe mild annoyance if anything. But with time, texts, and lots and lots of tears, a best friendship was able to blossom. When I met her, I was a boy. That's probably the biggest difference between then and now, even with all the other major changes she and I have made since. Neither of us knew it at the time, but both Lena and I were terrified that we didn't know who we were yet. Wedged between youth and adulthood, we leaned on each other for problems big and small. When I was at my absolute lowest, checked in to a mental health clinic, she was there every night. We talked on the phone for as long as we were both possibly permitted. I wrote her emails, she wrote me stories. It wasn't easy, but we helped each other make it through. As we got older and the political climate around us became more hostile, Lena had the near insurmountable task of guiding me through it. Whenever I found myself uninformed and afraid, she was right there to fill me in on everything I needed to know and all the reassurances I needed to hear. Lena still is not only my mentor, but my friend. I was there for her too when she needed me most, as much as her pride sometimes wished I wasn't. I love her with all I have, and her political activist outlook has inspired my own. I hope to advocate for the queer and feminist communities, as she has always taught me that being who I am and supporting others is both beautiful and brave. My best friend is not just a best friend. I know, I know, everyone says that, but truly, she is everything. I hope I've been able to prove that to you. My chosen sister, my best friend, the platonic love of my life, Lena Trask-Trafton, taught me how to be a human.

Writing is important to me. That’s a complete sentence. Writing is important to me because. That is not a complete sentence. There is no because. Sure, it’s because I feel like writing saved my life. And because it’s my primary emotional outlet. And because I love it so much that I want to make it my career. It’s all that, and no because. I’m not a writer for a reason. Not because I have so much to give the world by sharing my thoughts and feelings in written form. Not because I want to write; not because I need to. Not because I’m scared of what would happen to me if I didn’t. I’m not a writer for a reason. Except for all of those reasons. All those ‘because’s that shed themselves from my pockets along the way. Because I’m lonely, and writing keeps me company. Because I want to escape this world; because I want to face it head on. Because, quite simply, I can’t draw. There is an art inside me that I can’t mix media or doodle away. And so, I write. Writing is important to me. That’s a complete sentence. Writing is important to me because. That is not a complete sentence. Writing is important to me because it’s in my very blood. That is a complete sentence. The only truly complete sentence. The complete sentence that completes me. Not that I needed to be completed. My papier-mache heart didn’t need any more glue, thank you. My macrame soul was fine hanging on my wall, thank you, thank you. Not that I needed to be completed, but writing did it anyway. That’s why writing is important to me. It saved me, completed me, loved me. Writing made me feel seen when I was small and young and deeply invisible. I can only hope that with a whole future of writing ahead of me, I can begin to do the same for it. Not just for it, but for all the other small, young, deeply invisible little writers out there who want to be more than small. More than young. More than deeply invisible. Who do need more glue on their papier-mache hearts and yarn in their macrame souls, thank you, thank you. Writing may be important to them too, and I want to show them that it's all real. It's all true and possible and within reach. Writing is important to me because it gives me the means, drive, and opportunity to make the world a better place. That's all I've ever hoped for.

I am who I am because of both the things I can control and the things I can't. It seems obvious on paper. Our choices affect us, as do circumstances. But many people don't enjoy applying this thought process to themselves. "Am I?" they wonder. "Am I who I am because of my decisions and the decisions of others? Maybe I'm different. Maybe I'm unaffected." It helps me to think no one is truly unaffected. Every option presented to us comes with a whole heaping load of context and unchangeable caveats that we can't always see. Not everything has a simple answer, and that's ok. I spent many years not understanding this, particularly when I was in inpatient treatment for my mental health. "But Mom," I'd ask, "Why can't I just come home?" "Because, honey, you're in the hospital for a reason. You're not better yet." And I'd cry and scream and beg her to let me leave, but no one would budge. I was in the hospital for a reason, I wasn't better yet. As horrifying as the thought was back then, I really did need help. I'd tried to fling myself off a second-story balcony; I obviously wasn't well. Something I could control- a choice I'd made- led to something I couldn't. That was one thing I told myself I'd learn quickly: that actions have consequences. Of course, with a frontal-lobe heavily under development and a whole cocktail of anti-depressants and teenage hormones coursing through my veins, I did not adhere to this principle as often as I thought I would. I would still call my mom and ask her to take me home almost every day. I'd break rules and say things I shouldn't with little regard for how it would affect not only my return but my recovery. I was young; dumb; scared. Even soon after an action, I would find myself wondering: "Why did I do that?" It was a real problem. My goals drifted slowly further from my reach, as did my friends. The world around me became unfocused and frightening. But, with time, some of the wounds healed, the narratives changed, and I grew. I learned that each moment, each hour spent in groups learning skills I'd once thought were meaningless, was a moment I was alive. Maybe it wouldn't always be pleasant, but I would at least on the path to recovery. I had been in the hospital for a reason, I wasn't better yet. I didn't understand the difference between what I could control and what I couldn't. I didn't see my parents' divorce as 'formative' or something I'd be grateful for someday. I didn't see the loss of my relationships as restorative or necessary. It was all just awful. Sometimes it's still awful. I still have my moments, crying in the dark, waiting for someone to come pick me up off the floor. As if, in their arms, all my problems will go away. Now though, I can recognize that it's not that easy. I have to pick myself up off the floor. That's a choice I have to make. Circumstances can lead me to the balcony, but it can't make me jump. That's why I'm still here. My experience with mental health, my journey, has shown me that no one is unaffected. That we are who we are, not just because of the circumstances thrust upon us, but because of what we choose to do with those circumstances. I chose to live, and I will forever be glad I did.

It was only days after I first cut myself that suicide too bled forth into my life. Young, queer, hateful, and terrified, my first and only thought was to blame myself. "You self-harmed over a lost calculator, and now a man is dead. It's all your fault." It was, of course, not even the slightest bit my fault. My childhood best friend's father had jumped off the Coronado Bridge for many reasons, but because a little boy several states away didn't know how to cope with being yelled at was not one of them. I really thought I knew everything then. I was so deeply certain that my wound had unleashed the darkness that ultimately took a man from his family and friends forever upon the world. It had to be my fault. If it wasn't, that meant "it" was a tragedy I could do nothing about, and that was somehow even worse. But after years of therapy, coping, and reminders that the world was miraculously still spinning, I slowly came to realize that the guilt he had carried to his grave didn't have to carry me to mine. No one white crescent moon scar could have irrevocably altered the life of someone it never had the chance to meet. In as many words, it wasn't my fault. It couldn't have been my fault. It was a tragedy I could do nothing about, and while awful, that was the way of the world. What I now know, and hope to show as many others as I can, is that survivor's guilt is a feeling, not a fact. Even though it's deeply valid and deeply painful to experience it that way, it's just not true. No matter what could have been different or changed, we ended up where we are, and since time travel isn't yet an option, it's going to stay that way. I don't offer that advice with the heaping side of hopelessness it may sound like it comes with, but instead with the hope that radical acceptance can find a foothold in others' hearts as it has in mine. Radical Acceptance, for the uninitiated, as I was at the time, is the principle of acknowledging things in our lives that we cannot change. It is not an approval of these difficult things, just a regard for the fact that they will continue to be, despite our deepest wishes that they would not. If it were up to me, my friend never would have lost his father. I would have never misplaced my calculator and my innocence and found myself so overwhelmed and ashamed that I felt I had no choice but to hurt myself. I certainly would have never associated these two events in my mind in any way, and I would have never spent even a single moment living with the soul-crushing guilt I did. But unable to rewind time, I find myself not exactly grateful, but at least in acceptance of the things I experienced. Even thought it was only days after I first cut myself that suicide too bled forth into my life, I find now I can have other thoughts than to blame myself and for that, I am grateful.