This week my therapist told me she thought it would be fun and helpful if I did a vision board for 2022. I was a little hesitant at first because I’m not very good at the arts and craftsmanship, and, like any normal person, I want my therapist to think I’m the coolest, most talented human being in the world (which is why I’ve only shared my favorite personal essays with her and highly edited so far). But then I remembered how cute Autostraddle Editor-in-Chief Carmen Phillips looked when she was writing her Ultimate Skeptic’s Mood Boards guide in 2018, and decided to give it a shot. At worst, it would require me to fix the printer, which my wife has been asking me to do since last tax season. Best case scenario, I would learn something about myself – and my cats would have a good time playing with the glue stick cap they would inevitably steal and turn into a hockey puck.
The immediate problem I encountered is that, two years after Long Covid, I still do not know, day to day, what I am capable of accomplishing. So it’s hard to set goals, because I’m afraid of failing because my body will act out, and then won’t I feel any worse than if I never even set goals in the first place! ? And, like, how do you dream things up in the midst of a pandemic that never seems to end? Would I like to spend more time in green spaces? I definitely would! But I risk everything every time I go to the laundromat or the pharmacy, and these are absolute necessities! How can you imagine great things when you have virtually no control over anything, not even whether or not your blood will cooperate on any given day and pump itself into your brain for you to make words! How can I dream of bigger things when the world is getting smaller and smaller? Also, how do you get an A+ on an assignment you have no experience with and who am I even if I don’t get an A+?
Well, APPEARENTLY the joke is on me because that was the whole point of asking me to do a vision board. Answering these questions is much less daunting when you cut out photos of Viola Davis at the same time. My therapist guessed that it would take me two hours to do a vision board. In fact, it took me four days. But I’m very proud of it, because what I’ve learned in this process is that there’s still a lot of things I can dream of, achieve and try to do and feel, even when I’m I have no control over almost anything.
I also learned, once again, that there really is no limit to my homosexuality. Here is my vision board for 2022. I would love to see yours too!
Click here for actual size.
Heather Hogan
Heather Hogan is an Autostraddle editor who lives in New York City with his wife, Stacy, and their cackle of rescued pets. She is a member of the Television Critics Association, the Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association and a reviewer for Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer. You can also find it on Twitterand Instagram.
Heather has written 1392 articles for us.
