Ways to Decompress During Holiday Mania

By enakshi ganguly Tis the season to empty your wallets & run the streets to your local outlet mall! Even if you’re not somebody who really celebrates the holidays, our culture drastically shifts towards buying more, finding the best deals, and doing more for ourselves and others. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it can definitely rev up the …

How to Make Friends in a Digital Era

By enakshi ganguly   As someone who graduated over a year ago, one thing that has drastically changed for me is making friends. Whereas before, I used to see the same set of people during classes, at organization events and meetings, in the student lounge, now, I only see a very small group of people and they either work with …

Social & Holiday Depression for Queer People of Color

By Tarik Daniels For some people, the holidays are a time when we are the happiest. People’s energies are uplifting, people are joyous and thankful. Spirits are running high and it’s usually a time for love, family, and friendships. Most of these feelings and actions are organic because they are usually taught behaviors through traditions and societal norms. Who wouldn’t …

Walking in Winter

By enakshi ganguly Now that the weather is getting cooler, I just want to go into hibernation. I’ve been sleeping a lot more and eating more warm foods like soup and chilli. This is me every winter. This year though, I want to be more active, more engaging with the weather. This is sweater weather. Cuddling weather. Clean-off-the-summer-dust-from-the-crockpot kind of …

The Joys of Rain

By enakshi ganguly Back home, we think of rain as a blessing. When it rains during a funeral, a wedding or the birth of a baby, we give gratitude to the earth for witnessing us. The rain is romantic where I come from. It’s the motion the sky makes when it kisses the earth. I can go on and on …

What is Toxic Monogamy?

By Jae Lin Monogamy, the practice of having only one sexual and/or romantic partner at a time, in itself is not a bad, lesser, or toxic structure for romantic relationships. However, through its prevalence and influence in patriarchal and heteronormative systems, many harmful concepts of control and power have been entwined with common messages of what true love and monogamy …

How to Bike When You’re Scared to Bike

By ena ganguly I was in the 8th grade when I learned how to bike. My parents tried to teach me when I was younger, but the thought of leaving my training wheels behind always frightened me. And then, the ultimate betrayal happened when my Baba promised he was holding the back of my bike as I pedaled without the …

Ways to Ground Yourself

By ena ganguly Whether it is after a long hard day or after receiving shocking news, there are experiences that uproot us, knock us down, keeps us from re-orienting ourselves. It happens to everybody, but with the rate of violence against queer people of color, it happens to us at an alarming and unjust rate. Here are some ways I …

What to Do When You Have Chronic Pain

By ena ganguly Every person’s body may have chronic pain differently. We hurt in different places and for different reasons. I hurt from a chronic illness called Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. It’s not as serious as it sounds. It’s quite common around the world and can cause chronic pain amongst other symptoms. For me, the disease makes me insulin resistance, which …

Intentionality and Long Distance Relationships

By Shireen Emami   It was about a year ago I met the person I now consider to be my soulmate. We met digitally some months ago by chance, when. I decided to go over to a friend’s place and walked right into a FaceTime conversation between my friend and my (now) partner. I entered their kitchen to prepare a …