oh my messy mind.

around the time of year that the sun has deserted us seemingly permanently, the dark creeping in instead — around the time of year my entire body freezes up in preparation, feeling your absence like a fist wrapped around my oesophagus. a mist clouds my thoughts and clogs up my veins, and it’s like every day we creep closer to a grief we’ve never been able to properly let rest. somehow, my body always knows way before my brain can play catch-up.

it’s not just you that my body prepares itself for like a soldier going to battle — it’s all of december that’s built of trauma after trauma, a new one added to the mix year after year, to the point that my shoulders felt so heavy even my feet couldn’t hold them up anymore. until this year, finally the dam broke, and I decided something had to give.

all of these images push themselves to the forefront of my mind when I let them.

the first ones, and the core ones at that, unfolded in 1995, the year you crashed to the bathroom floor, and I asked hopefully when you were coming back. the indescribable devastation that followed when I found out you would never hold me again. that same year, not even three weeks later, when my mother critically ended up in the hospital, missing all the moments that are supposed to bring a festive light in the sullen darkness: Christmas, my birthday, New Years. and there four-year-old me was, not only left without you, but also without the one sense of safety I still had left, desperately clutching a piece of fabric she had given me that was supposed to tide me over until everything was back to normal. and normal came briefly, when I met my little sister, but it’s vaguer than the rest of it. did I hold her tiny, rosy hand? my memory tells me yes, but she was so small and fragile, surely I wasn’t allowed to — I might as well have conjured it up myself to make the transition easier. and then, four days later, when she, too, left us. shamefully, I have to admit that the pain I had felt for you wasn’t there this time around, but naturally I did see it in the downturned slump of my parents’ eyes. to this day, I still don’t feel that grief, and I wonder what’s wrong with me because of it. I also wonder what you would’ve thought, meeting her. would it have been as hard as it was when meeting me, or my older cousin? was it for the best you were spared from that grief one last time?

other images wrangle their way forward of events that happened later on: the times in 1997, or was it 1998? fitting that I can’t remember, as it felt like I had no solid ground beneath my feet, like I didn’t even exist on this planet, so scared of life itself that I screamed into the loud, bustling wind by the beach with such a deeply guttural noise I made my mother cry as my plea for help echoed through the dunes. the times when my medication made me so paranoid I genuinely thought my own mother was trying to poison me, even though she was the only one able to calm me down. seeing my best friend play a game in my living room and knowing with a certainty I wasn’t real to begin with, so surely he wasn’t either. when I was in the hospital myself, hooked up to a machine as they were trying to figure out exactly how bad off I would be for the rest of my life, and then having to carry a mini-version of it around for twenty-four torturous hours, year after year, as I knew the rhythm of my heartbeat was written onto paper with every move I made.

2001, crying and screaming in my bed, begging to not have to go, not without my mother. and even then, I didn’t know what I know now — she wasn’t forced by health reasons to not go, she chose not to, a double betrayal burning my trust so deeply I can’t even begin to describe it. I was forced out of bed by his arms and put on a plane to the other side of the world, and the week that followed was the unsafest of my entire life. the memories are blurry — a sharp, nauseating smell, dust in all my crevices, a dark, cold house, and a language I did not speak. the laughter of a six year old child was my only relief in the panic. other than that, I don’t remember much. it’s probably for the best, as when I came home I spent my entire birthday hunched over a toilet bowl, emptying myself from the entire experience. (you would’ve been furious.)

2006, years later, when the bubble burst, and there was no love in that car. no love at the big family holiday get-togethers, either. instead, a beautiful charade to keep up pretenses, followed by a stifling pressure closing down my throat in a cold, chilly car, driving towards nowhere in particular, and not fully grasping why all I wanted was to jump out of the backseat, pack the fully prepared runaway bag I had mentally packed a million times and set off to the other side of the country, to flee to a friend I knew was sure to not tell anyone about my whereabouts. (I wish you could’ve been that friend, but I had to make do with what I had.)

2013, when I had to perform all sorts of gymnastics to “celebrate” my birthday, as the entrance of a new man was enough cause to be told I didn’t have a father anymore. “have a wonderful life from now on, but I won’t be in it”. that day was the point of no return.

you would’ve understood. put him in his place, even, as you were the only person he respected enough to listen to, but I never got the time I needed with you to grow up and grow into the language to discuss it properly. but the happy moments are missing, too: you would’ve cheered, and held me tight as you would’ve been the first to hear I was bisexual. you’d have dragged your queer friends over to your house to sit and talk with me, ensure I felt safe and knew what was happening to me. you’d have understood all my demons and you were the one who, even when I was a tiny four-year-old, protected me from his iron rule and approached it with humour and rebellion, the way I still do now.

so it’s selfish to have wanted to keep you here any longer than you were. I know it is. you had a harder life than anyone of us could ever have imagined and it plagued you even when it didn’t. but still, it’s the anniversary of when you died. when my biggest protector, biggest adventure buddy, my partner in crime and the shield against everything I needed protecting from left me to fend for myself.

you needed to go, and that’s alright — you’re at peace now. and, you’d be delighted to see: with the lack of your presence, I have become my own protector these days. I do it fervently, the way you taught us to, and I am proud to say I’m built out of all the best parts of you.

once, years ago, my therapist said she had never met anyone my age before who had been through so much and yet approaches it with such a strong sense of humour, even in the darkest times. it made me smile, because if I know one thing for certain, it’s that I get that from you. the diary entries from the darkest time of your life are heart wrenching, raw in their vulnerability, and somehow still so, so incredibly funny. I thumb through the frantically-scribbled-on pages and feel strengthened by your blood coursing through my veins, knowing that if I am made up of even 1% of your DNA, I’ll be alright.

I thank whatever higher power is out there that I am.

the holidays are supposed to be bright, but understandably, the years have darkened them considerably even if I try my hardest despite it all every single year. my moody, self-indulgent december playlist is currently playing in the background, but there is no song in there for you, as you passed before I started assigning memories to music. I hate that there’s not a single song I can put on that makes me feel closer to you, apart from dutch schlagers that remind me of the neighbourhood you lived in when you were young.

except then I look in the mirror, see the mischievous sparkle in my eyes I’ve been told is always present no matter how I feel, and I know with an absolute certainty —

— that sparkle is you, and you’re here in every song I listen to.

every book I read.

every word I write.

Ohoho, I am a Big Fan of this!

Poor people can’t afford air conditioning. Cheaper houses have less insulation. Cities contain more heat and poorer neighborhoods have less grass and trees, which absorb heat. Playgrounds in poorer neighborhoods are more likely to be composed of low-maintenance materials like concrete, rubber tiles, and sand. All of which make these places hotter. And when heat becomes deadly, poorer neighborhoods often have access to fewer and slower emergency response services.

Meanwhile, people in poorer neighborhoods are often criminalized for using the escapes available to them, like sitting in public fountains and swimming in city canals, and filling a kiddie pool with water on the sidewalk in front of their houses. During the last heat wave in the Netherlands, desperate neighbors in overheating city blocks opened fire hydrants to give their children some much needed relief from the heat. The result? A police crackdown on poor people.

And of course everywhere people of color, immigrants and other marginalized people are more likely to live in these conditions than white people and to suffer more criminalization.

And then there’s work. Who is more likely to work a physically demanding job? Who is more likely to work outside? Who can afford to take their lunch break in an air conditioned restaurant and who must do so on the side walk? You guessed it.