How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community

part of what is both harmful and boring about that narrow lens is that misses what is beautiful, resilient, supportive, and brilliant about the breadth and fluidity of so many Black families.

Poor people, queer people, Black people, unhoused people—especially the women and gender-nonconforming people among them—to varying degrees operate outside convention because convention has rejected us.

These ways of creating relationships, family, and community are, of course, not actually new. What is new is that people who are following unconventional paths are more public, are documenting their experiences, and are able to find one another more easily (thank you, internet).

The practice of explicit communication she found there countered the fantastical ideas that we learn about relationships. “I think we have to deal with the idea that we learn from movies and from norms that say, ‘Oh, relationships are so organic. You don’t need to say anything. Things so naturally happen.’ Well no, things naturally fall apart.”

we struggle mightily to do it alone, to prove ourselves to an unrealistic and unhealthy standard, when reaching out could make our lives not only easier, but better.

We can’t fully know ourselves without other people.

Let’s dismantle the primacy of the conventional romantic couple for the benefit of all of us.

I’ve felt both agitated and excited about what might be possible. I’ve felt an energizing desire to be more explicit about the life I’m building. And I want to build that life in deep alignment with my best self’s values, and a vision of the world I want to help create.

Who needs to keep a list of the people they love to remember to stay in touch with them? But apparently I do. And I’d rather feel like an asshole than behave like one.

reframing our understanding of how we achieve the “good life” and…

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