I legit think we got played. Not that anything magical happens at midnight on January 1st of any year except the collective delusion that this will be the (entirely made up my Europeans) year that we will do shit that is supposed to be good for us (lose weight, pay off debt etc etc) but really is about perpetuating the status quo.

But I really think we got really played. We put so much hate, so much weight on the asshole (and not in a good way) of a year that was 2020 – that we played ourselves into thinking that there was no way in hell that 2021 could be worse.

I mean it had to get fucking better right? How much more death could we witness because of COVID, because of white supremacy and those that uphold it, because of climate accelerated disasters, because capitalism?

And personally 2021 for me was set (is set) to be a year of transformation. I started it in a new apartment, I started it cutting all ties with an abusive ex. I slowly am getting and putting together new furniture and walking around in a new to me part of Los Angeles. And yes these changes allowed me to think about intentions (not resolutions), movement in a direction not a final landing spot.

But then I and all of us were reminded and were kind of laughed at by the universe. I believe and I have started to say aloud to people now that 2020 has at least 18 months because the new year brought the death of two members of two day laborers in my work community. Two more started the new year hospitalized. More staff tested positive. The father of an acquaintance(friend?) of mine died. She like me , like so many of us, moved far from our parents. And then the flash…

flash and rush of blood and Ancestral, genetic, real flashbacks of invasions by white men, guns, hiding, uncertainly and also reinforcement of what flags we pledge allegiance to and don’t. PTSD triggered and reminders of how this all functions, about who gets to do certain things and not immediately get shot, bombed, teargassed, arrested, disappeared, killed.

And then pa’l fucking colmo the news breaks of another fake ass Rican – one that I knew about because my abusive ex told you about it because they were homies and part of the same dique radical lawyer org. This fake Rican revelation really me pico because I was on a panel with her and I pushed aside all of my own experience, over 25 years because she was not just Rican, but because she was a lawyer and I watched how a younger newer to the movement Rican looked up to this woman who was not just a white, light woman but not even fucking Puerto Rican.

And it wasn’t just her act – her semantic defense – the trick of all narcissistic lawyers, it was also the surrounding atmosphere. How a so called radical legal organization knew and kept quiet as it figured out it’s own internal accountability process- led by other people – like my ex who refuses to be accountable for the harm he caused in our once shared home. How other organizations that paid her – and prided themselves on being Latinx/Rican led- first defended her and only after realizing that they needed to save face “accepted” her resignation instead of demanding it.

I wanted my first post of 2021 to be about all the little things I’m learning and appreciating about my new hood, all the quirks and annoyances of a new apartment. I wanted to write about writing and about letting go and truth telling and intentions.

But these last 10 days (it’s only been 10 days!) of 2021 feel like a continuation, a sequal, a volume 2 to 2020.

And I also reminded that today there was a new morning under a blue clear sky. Later there will be a sunset and so on and maybe I’ll witness these things and more. Maybe I won’t. So let me document what I can, walk where I will and maybe you will join me for some of it.

I hope.