ayers holiday newsletter: 2021
Author’s note: if you didn’t know about any of the hard things recounted in this letter while they were happening, please do not reach out to ask how we’re doing or offer platitudes. While the sentiment is presumably genuine, we are quite focused on holding each close at this time, and being asked to regurgitate our experiences is exhausting at best and retraumatizing at worst. Thank you for understanding and respecting this boundary!
Dear family and friends;
When we were quite young, our family sent out yearly Christmas newsletters carefully crafted on red and green paper. This was especially invigorating for Robyn, who found their love for writing in drafting these family time capsules.
Much has changed, since then…
For those of you who are new, here’s an extremely truncated update: we started out as conservative fundamentalist evangelical Christians being homeschooled in rural Kansas. Fast forward, and we are three queer leftist agnostics living in New York City. While we understand that those last two sentences skipped at least a dozen steps, we’re going to keep that to ourselves for now. At least until Robyn writes their first book.
In the meantime, we’ve decided to reclaim the holiday newsletter tradition. Let’s begin!
~
Content Warning: generic mentions of harassment, hospitals, psych wards, & suicide attempts.
~
Alex has been living in NYC since August of 2019, and they’re thriving here. The change from the PNW was extremely needed and long overdue.
They began their year living with a friend of Robyn’s and a cat named Inky who abandoned his duties as an ESA in favor of sitting on Alex’s shoulders 24/7. In August, they found their own roommates and got a beautiful apartment in BedStuy with Robyn acting as guarantor and how-often-to-water-the-plants advisor. Unluckily, they ended up severely spraining their ankle during the move, and spent the next three months on crutches and in intensive physical therapy.
Unfortunately, the trauma of the last several years eventually caught up to Alex, resulting in an extreme mental breakdown. Robyn ended up taking them to the hospital, where they were admitted to inpatient treatment for just under a month. While a scary prospect, this was the first time that a medical treatment team actually took both Alex and Robyn’s concerns seriously, and worked collaboratively to find a treatment plan. After discharging, Alex spent a while in an intensive outpatient program and then transitioned to seeing a therapist and psychiatrist. While mental health is never a linear journey, they’re much more equipped to handle and process their trauma than ever before.
As the city began to reopen businesses, Alex re-entered the hospitality workforce at a bar in Midtown Manhattan. Unfortunately, that turned out to be a deeply exhausting and traumatizing workplace, and Alex eventually admitted that they would not be able to sustain the verbal and physical harassment without another breakdown. They’re extremely good at their job, and quickly found a different restaurant on the opposite side of Manhattan which has proven to be a much safer environment.
On a lighter note, Alex has rediscovered their love of reading, and easily churns through one book a week in between shifts, Facetime calls with Robyn and Chrisanne, and juggling their different appointments. Empty spaces in their memory are starting to refill, leading to some hilarious late night stories accompanied by the occasional out of pocket gallows humor. They still scream-laugh after saying something particularly ridiculous, which both Robyn and Chrisanne can’t hear without bursting into laughter alongside them.
~
Chrisanne’s start to the year was less than ideal, beginning with her fourth stay in intensive eating disorder treatment in Denver, Colorado. After discharging, she stayed briefly in Iowa, before impulsively moving back to Denver in an attempt to reclaim her sense of autonomy. While there, she worked in a daycare center and adopted a kitten named George (affectionately referred to as Gorg, Gorgothy, Gorgonzola, Mr. Man, little demon child, etc.).
Unfortunately, the stability did not last. 50+ hour work weeks in an unhealthy work environment combined with severe parental trauma contributed to a severe mental health deterioration that ended in a complete breakdown and an attempt at ending her life. Robyn immediately flew out to Colorado to oversee her hospital discharge, recovery, and outpatient treatment. With Robyn’s backing, Chrisanne quit her job, and spent the next several months focused solely on addressing her mental health and deeply rooted trauma.
After the summer road trip (more on that later), Robyn had to return to NYC to shoot a film. Chrisanne returned to Denver one final time to sell her belongings and prepare to move to NYC, which was accomplished in late August. She stayed with Robyn until finding an apartment in October with one of Robyn’s acquaintances.
Chrisanne currently works part-time as a nanny for a lovely family in Brooklyn, while she works to confront her mental health and carve out safer patterns for herself. She’s acclimating extremely well to the city, no longer gets lost on the subway, and continues to find joy in baking, songwriting, Facetiming Robyn as much as humanly possible, and improving her skills on the guitar. Her long term goals are to work and save for the next year and a half, and then return to school to finish her nursing degree and begin her career. She is a hilarious outrage to have around (except for when she’s being a pain in the ass) and makes the other two laugh with her dumb comments and oblivious humor.
~
Robyn still lives in Harlem, with their best friend of almost a decade. They have seven thriving plants, a full bookshelf, and a giant soup pot that they use with a possibly alarming frequency. Robyn has spent the past couple years stepping fully into their role as a sibling-parent to Alex and Chrisanne. Which is to say, if you try to come for the two of them, look out.
They spent the late winter and spring months caring for Alex, and trying to get them set up with a care team that would actually listen to their concerns. Thankfully, this panned out much better than previous attempts. Dr. Lisa: if you’re reading this, thank you for believing us.
In July and August, Robyn spent about 48 hours a week in NYC for rehearsals, and the rest of their time was in Denver caring for Chrisanne. Chrisanne spent a week in NYC when Robyn had to be in NYC for rehearsals, which solidified Robyn’s long-held instinct that Chrisanne needed to live near to them. Thankfully, that transition went smoother than the previous months.
Beyond familial circumstances, Robyn’s life has been packed with change. In April, they received a job offer from a nonprofit to come on board as a training specialist. They now spend their work days writing and delivering training curriculum for organizations and communities working in conflict and crisis zones and confronting police violence.
They spent a month working two jobs before finally letting go of their safety net and resigning from the library at Fordham University. That decision still hurts some days, as that place was their first sense of consistency in young adulthood. Plus, the nonprofit industrial complex is virtue signaling garbage. Nonetheless, we push forward.
While writing is now their day job, Robyn still considers their career to be in the performing arts. They dance most consistently for Hivewild, a company that they’ve been with since the summer of 2018. If you’ve never seen them perform, stay tuned in 2022 - Hivewild will be shooting a 30 minute dance film in the spring, with an expected release in October. Robyn has also begun developing their skills as an amateur cinematographer. The most recent progression of this endeavor was a campaign film they made for a young dance collective, Wet Hairy Women.
Robyn’s professional career is the easiest to talk about, but they are most certainly proudest of the relationships that they have cultivated with Alex and Chrisanne. Their smiles are back with more consistency than years before, and we’ve cultivated a family dynamic that is safe, healthy, stable, and full of joy amongst the hardship.
~
George currently lives with Robyn while Chrisanne adjusts to her new living situation (to the consternation of CA and the absolute delight of Robyn). He’s 30% sleep, 30% screaming for cuddles, and 30% running laps in the apartment. An absolute menace, but we adore him.
~
The best part of writing this letter is getting to talk about us as a family unit once we get to August and all three of us are in NYC. Even in the midst of covid, we’re extremely grateful for the chance to finally be home.
Alex & CA went on a tour of K-Town with Kalaya’an, Robyn’s dear friend, boss, and inspiration. Robyn took Alex and Chrisanne to Riis Beach (a popular queer hangout spot near the Rockaways) for the first time. Alex and Chrisanne got to see Robyn perform with Hivewild, and Robyn took the two of them to a MUNA concert. Robyn is constantly cooking for Alex and Chrisanne, which is sometimes difficult because Robyn & Alex add cayenne pepper to everything, while Chrisanne has the spice tolerance of an infant.
Early August (right before Chrisanne moved to NYC) the three of them went on a very brief road trip in the Midwest. This was an intense experience, as the Midwest holds a lot of difficult memories (and to be honest, we’re quite glad that it’s over). The highlight of the trip was getting to reconnect with our cousins (for Robyn, this was the first time they’d seen them in over seven years) which was so incredibly precious.
Even amidst the terror of a global pandemic, climate change, and political uncertainty, we’re hanging in there. Celebrating joy wherever we can find it, swimming through the hard times, learning how to stand up for ourselves, facing our fears, planning post-covid tattoos, singing harmonies, dyeing our hair, painting quotes, taking healthy pictures, and all in all taking charge of living our own lives.
We’re thrilled to be spending our first holiday season together and outside of hospitals for the first time in 6 years. Even if we have to spend it socially distanced outdoors or over Facetime, we’re together. It’s an honor that we cherish deeply.
Time is made up and entirely irrelevant, but all the same: we hope this letter finds you rested, held, and finding smiles wherever possible. Here’s to another rotation around the sun.
Robyn, Alex, & Chrisanne