V. H. King's Ink

Setting goals has been a long-standing tradition in my family. Even before my parents used Windows95 to make an Excel sheet to track what they hoped to achieve, my grandmother had the forethought to buy a chandelier for a house she didn’t have. People ridiculed her for it, asking what she would do with such a thing. But she knew what she wanted, and she believed one day, she would have it.
Revisiting five, ten, and twenty year goals I thought of when I was in fifth grade is almost as funny to me as the ones I set just a few years ago. From book series to doctoral degrees, I guess I’ve always had ambitious dreams. I’m no stranger to being told I’m stubborn, and I wonder if what they perceived was my commitment to achieving my goals against all odds.
Whatever the answer, I remember how I felt this time last year. My post for March this year warned of uncertainty, but that was after I had made it through my surgery. Last year’s holiday break was mostly dread and cynicism. It wasn’t the surgery itself I was worried about. I could barely keep up with work, between all the appointments to prepare me for surgery. At each of those appointments, I fought to be heard, to be treated with dignity and respect.
Every doctor said there was no way to tell how my underlying conditions would change after the surgery. The doctors also refused to approve medical leave, refer me to pain specialists, or otherwise advocate for any sort of post-surgery care. All this from the same team of doctors who said I couldn’t keep working in the first place, before they even knew I had a tumor.
Consequences from a decade of medical negligence is something I have to live with. I’m lucky, but I shouldn’t be. Doctors trusting a patient’s description of their bodily experiences shouldn’t be happenstance, but it is. Physicians believing that working full time is directly and negatively impacting the quality of life for a Black person shouldn’t be a miracle, but it is. I don’t want to be an inspiration for those reasons. I shouldn’t have to be.
As my surgery loomed just over the horizon of a new year, I had no expectation that much would change after the surgery. With the tumor gone, all my other concerns would likely be dismissed. I made up my mind that I would go back to work, if I had to. Part of me wanted to be forced down that road so it would kill me—but in my heart, I knew it would prove nothing. So when March came around, I admitted I was uncertain about my future—especially as an artist and writer who could no longer read, write legibly, or imagine anything. And when May came along, I was released from my position and subsequently left behind a life I had been trying to build for the past half a dozen years.
The day I’m writing this, I’m a month and a few weeks shy of my one-year surgery anniversary. I don’t think January 19th will become an infamous day in my memory. Whatever stories my family decides to stretch in their recounting is up to them. For me, however, I think this past summer closes out a decade of…something.
Looking back on the year is typical for a lot of people during this season. So is outlining hopes and plans for the new year, as is expecting a significant level of decline in the amount of energy dedicated to those plans. I feel the currents all around me, curling around my ankles and rushing between my legs and surging up to my shoulders. The waters, whispering: rush, rush, rush along with me!
Those waters might carry me for a while, but I will not land on my feet. I have given myself to those rapids before and found myself flung on the rocks before long, bloody scrapes and all. The idea I’m holding this year is not one of avoidance. I won’t scramble out of the river the moment it begins to move too freely for my liking. I think instead of a tree, whose roots draw nourishment from silt rushing through thawed run-off. I consider the branches, stark and bare, clothed in crystal snow or ice. Constricting rings in the bark, marking another winter of staying connected to the unseen.
As I embark on sharing writing concerned with that very same theme of strength from living with mystery, I am aware of my ambition. My impulse to set (and achieve) a goal of a certain number of stories scheduled over a specific period of time keeps rearing its head. I give that old standby a gentle pat on the head, scratching it between the ears as I slowly inhale, exhale, and stay right where I am.
One thing I have learned this year is to remember, and in remembering, I reach back to 2014. I’d had enough of toeing the lines, using hypothetical scenarios to gauge how others might react to who I knew myself to be. I find myself in a similar position as this year comes to a close: I’m fed up with having to earn the right to enjoy my writing and art.
I set up my Patreon and a shop because I wanted to push myself to keep up with writing, art, and other creative content. My incentives mainly revolved around finishing projects and coming up with creative products unique to my style and interests. I wanted to show the work I put into my art and writing, and see how people invested in it. The argument I made to myself was based on how often I heard people tell me my writing could take me to the picture screens. It amounted to a three-year experiment to see what people were willing to pay and how they were most likely to engage with what I put out there.
In the process, I disregarded the pain flares and fatigue waves that would put me under. I also made the mistake of letting those platforms dictate what, how, and when I shared my projects. In my determination to finish a major project, I ignored the directions for other writings and art pieces I know I needed to share. I thought I had to build my way up, to earn my creative freedom in the same way I had to earn a right to my hobbies by having a full-time job first.
I’m done with all of that. I spent the first 30 years of my life believing I had to earn the right to survive. The next thirty, I’m doing things differently. I have always known who I am and how I engage with the world(s) around me. I’m finally starting to believe I don’t owe others an explanation for those things, so I’m going to live like it.