Alaina Leary

I’ve walked the line between visibly and invisibly disabled my entire life.

I didn't use the word "asexual" until I was a senior in college. I didn't so much use the word as slur it, in between a long drunken ramble, to my girlfriend and our best friend in our apartment's small kitchen.

My sexual assault is the main reason my girlfriend and I didn’t celebrate the love-infested holiday for the first six years of our relationship. Last Valentine’s Day, a month after we celebrated seven years together, was our first time embracing the holiday as our own.

We think of holidays and big moments first when we think about death. What we don’t talk about are the little moments in between, like surviving Autumn.

September, for the first time in many years, wasn’t the start of any new beginnings. I’ve been in some form of school — general education in public schools, then an undergraduate degree, and then a graduate degree — since I was in preschool.

I told Winnie that I was queer before I told anyone human—late at night, in my room, after writing it down in my journal. “You won’t stop loving me if I’m gay, will you?” I asked him. He replied with his signature loud meow.

When my mom died, I made a list of things that made me similar to her: My favorite color was purple, I liked to write, I loved reading, I adored cats, I didn’t wear makeup, my favorite soda was Pepsi, I lived in oversized sweaters. I was 11, so I didn’t add “I love to drink” to the list, but it crosses my mind now whenever I’m at a bar with friends, and I decide to order a cocktail.