who's there?

the woosh
of the winds?

they still
feel like
love
to me

who’s there? 

i have no sense
of ownership
over these stories

i am a member
i am a witness
i am a memory
a forgotten memory

who’s there?

on your birthday,
do you celebrate 
joining the story?

do you celebrate your mother?
do you celebrate all of her mothers?
do you celebrate the midwives?
do you celebrate the episiotomy stitches?

do you celebrate all of the babies
born at the same time as you?
the ones who took their first breath 
before and after you?
the ones who took no first breath at all?

when you remember
who’s there?

I have been putting off writing this for about two months. It’s what we all do now, anyway. Feeling is too heavy, throw yourself into anything else: housework, schoolwork, workwork…

I’m not ready to talk about it, and that’s why I’m going to. Because it will never feel okay, and I’m waiting for nothing.

In the early morning of January 4th, I talked to my Nanny for the last time. She went into the hospital on Christmas morning after fainting, and I was home with my husband, three hours away, secretly seven weeks pregnant. I did not know at the time everything that I was in the middle of losing.

Worknights and bad weather got in the way. On the 29th, my mom facetimed her for me from the ICU before I had to leave for work. I almost didn’t pick up, because I selfishly didn’t want to face how I was feeling.

“Hi Halle! I love you! I miss you.”

Everyone said she lit right up. I spent a long, slow night at work knowing a snowstorm was coming, knowing I missed my chance at leaving for her indefinitely.

I had been ignoring my family this entire time. Between being newly pregnant for the first time, violent roommate conflicts, school stress, and seasonal depression, I deleted everything from my Motorola and put my SIM back into a flip phone. I desperately needed space. And I needed to not see her in the hospital knowing I wasn’t going to be there anytime soon. Everyone said she was rallying, right? People who have worked with elders and death know that’s actually not a good sign, but for myself, I needed it to be.

I knew I wanted her to be the first person we told, even before we knew she was dying. My husband and I tried for five months before being able to get pregnant. We knew that it would take some time, having both been told as teenagers we might struggle to have children. It was an especially traumatic process as someone who menstruates so violently. Bloodwork, supplements, constant ovulation and pregnancy tests, temperature and symptom tracking, cycle charting, always ending in such intense menstrual labors I wanted to give up; knowing that we didn’t conceive this cycle and knowing I might go through this mental, emotional, and physical pain just four weeks later.

We finally left Peterborough for Pembroke on January 2nd. The roads still hadn’t cleared up, but I knew we had to go. I still hadn’t responded to anyone. I told my sister what had been going on and called to say we were on the way, but behind my eyes I was alone.

At this point, two roommates found out we were expecting by being nosey, the third because he kept refusing to stop smoking in the house, my supervisor because I kept having to run to the bathroom every 10 minutes at work, and now my sister because I was so overwhelmed I needed someone who could help play defense on behalf of my emotional volatility. I had yet to be able to announce the news on 100% my terms.

When we got there, she was sicker than I had ever seen her, even more than right after her stroke, but her smile would never let you know. She demanded a hug, and I happily obliged, but as it turns out, she was more after one from Justin.

“I love you forever and ever,” she said to my husband.

Every time we had ever gone to see her, he got an extra hug goodbye, even the very first time. If anything told me to marry him, it was that. I gave her some of our wedding pictures, and a drawing I made of two penguins holding hands in a snow globe.

“Is that us?”

“You bet, Nan.”

The next day, Justin and I waited until the afternoon to go in. We spent the morning at Walmart, picking out onesies and baby books, trying to plan sharing the news. I had wanted us three to be alone, and to tell only her, but I tried to accommodate other plans, knowing that would be unlikely. She started declining as soon as the two of us got there. She got tired. She was uncomfortable in bed. She couldn’t breathe. She started hyperventilating. The room was cleared, and X-Ray machine was wheeled in. Just my aunt, me, and my husband.

“We can’t say for sure what it is, maybe a clot was thrown somewhere, but whatever it is, she won’t survive it.”

Even though the doctor had given no real timeline, I felt it. I had to gather myself and call my dad. I had to tell him his mom was going to die. That he needed to get down here, now. I had to hear his shaky exhale, on realizing this dreaded moment had actually come. I had to call my mom, tell her to pick up my brother, because everyone needed to be there. I had to call my sister, who had just left back to Peterborough, and was planning on coming back the next day. I had to tell her we didn’t know for sure, but I didn’t think she’d make it back in time.

It was agreed upon that we would just keep being happy and spending time with her, because she was afraid to die and nobody wanted to scare her. But she knew. She decided to do Christmas with us that night, after reallocating extra money into all of our cards. She gave them to each of us individually, in private, recorded by my aunt. Still, no one would say it in front of her, but of course she knew.

When that was over, it was our turn to give her a gift. We handed a bag to her, and to my parents, and to my aunt and uncle, to open all at the same time. A couple of baby books, and Nan’s present, a tiny outfit that read: “I choo-choo choose you!” She couldn’t make out what it was, but I told her that me and Justin were having a baby. Some people believe that the beginning and end of life are deeply connected, by whatever happens in between. Sometimes toddlers babble about their last life, or someone on their deathbed sees someone that already passed. This was the first sign (I’m lucky enough to have a video to transcribe):

“See? It’s a shirt for a little baby.”

(Knowingly) “Ohh- Why, is it soon here?”

“Me and Justin are having a baby.”

“Yeah, I know, but, it’s not here yet.”

I, unknowingly, was having a missed miscarriage. Even though I was still pregnant during this exchange, there was no longer anything growing inside me. The baby would, in fact, be “delivered” soon, though not naturally.

She knew she wouldn’t be around, too, because she said my mom and aunt would be happy to help me. They were; they both talked me through my loss and surgery.

I had broken what was supposed to be the happiest news of my life under such devastating circumstances; knowing I was announcing to her the existence of a baby she would never get to meet. I had also done it in front of my cousin and his fiancée, who I knew had also been trying unsuccessfully, although no one knew we had gone through it, too. It wasn’t not at all how it was supposed to go.

Later that night, Nan wouldn’t let me help move her in bed. Because I was pregnant. In the time that she needed to be taken care of the most, she was still taking care of me. We always understood each other. My dad was exhausted and grieving and couldn’t quite understand her frustrated, dry, breathy words. When he left the room, I adjusted her legs the way she was trying to ask. My final act of love.

“Thank you, Halle.”

My dad sent us away for a couple hours, but the whole family ended up getting called back when the nurse was confident her heart was going to fail. There were only a few of us at first. My dad wanted me to get to talk to her, because I had gotten the least time to. They were trying to keep light, happy conversation, keep her distracted, even though they were still having a hard time understanding her. She yelled at everybody to “frig off!”, wanting to talk to me alone, but no one understood the demand, so I’ll never know all of what she had wanted to say.

I don’t remember the full context, if she was explicitly asked, but we were talking about me becoming a mom, and I will never forget what she said. That I was going to have five or six babies, but she was going to keep one to take care of herself. We all kinda laughed it off, because she was sleep-deprived and sedated, but there was more truth to that last part than anyone knew.

“I love you, Nanny.”

“I love you, too, Halle.”

She fought for about four more hours, trying to stay alive, as she had said before, for her beautiful family. I helped her pull her oxygen tube off when she was fed up of it, and my aunt, my mom, and me all sat with a hand on her until her heart stopped beating.

I will have to leave it at this for today, but I will write out my pregnancy loss experience in a separate article when I can. I just needed this closure for now.

♡ Hal

Once again, read my connected poem for this article here.

I never was good at math…

♡ Hal

I haven’t told her yet,
But at home she would say:
‘‘Oh, frigg off!’’
With a huge smile on her face.

I am holding her hand but it keeps darting away.
I barely remember a time when her hands didn’t shake.
But I remember when feeding herself didn’t make her cry,
I remember the fire that lived behind those eyes.

I used the spoon for her today,
Then put it back into her hand
Because she is the grown-up
And I am the baby.

But you are the baby
That she will never spoon-feed rice pudding,
Or bounce up and down on her knee,
Or backhand for sassing and apologize to with candy.

I haven’t told her yet,
But she will finally be getting some sleep soon,
And when she wakes up,
She will be so happy to see you.

I will make up a couple of my missed weeks in the next few days. These feelings are all still so raw, and terribly sticky to try and work with. Forgive me.

♡ Hal

This time, there is no ‘‘share post’’ or ‘‘subscribe’’ button. If I can encourage any call-to-action, it’s this: go spend some time with someone you love. Maybe you’re putting off that visit or phone call out of guilt for not doing it sooner, but that hug or ‘‘I love you!’’ text will mean so much more one day when you won’t be able to anymore. ‘‘One day’’ always comes sooner than we expect. Love someone out loud today.

Note: This essay was written for a course called Decolonial Feminisms. For me, recounting these events is an act of radical decolonial feminism itself. This story feels very personal to me, and I disagree with that feeling; I don’t think it is or should be personal, and that the feeling of wanting to keep it close to me is unearned shame.

Since I’ve been working in the 2025 Audible Indigenous Writers’ Circle this year, in November I was attending the one and only in-person event hosted by the mentorship program. It was my first cross-country solo trip as it was hosted in Vancouver, and only my second ever flight.

Something that colonial bodies would have me believe to be a solely personal experience happened to me on this trip, that really brought out themes of decolonial feminism for me. About midway through the flight, I felt the telltale hot flashes; the ones that tell me I need to go find a safe place immediately. Problem: I was thirty thousand feet in the air and as alone as I’ve ever felt packed in with a hundred other people. You see, I have a “mystery” menstrual disorder that puts my body into labor when I get my period: hot flashes, nausea, contractions, searing pain, cold sweats, tunnel vision.

Now I was not only facing the grief of failed conception alone, so far away from my partner, but I was experiencing a degree of pain that I struggle to explain to people because I appear totally fine as soon as the next day. I noticed how invisible I felt from the moment it started. I was in tears, doubled over for the final two hours of the flight, and no one checked on me.

When the pain became unbearable, I hit the call button frantically and repeatedly and had to wait ten minutes for help by the presumably annoyed flight attendants. I was offered sympathy and help from everyone that I asked, until I clarified that the pain was being caused by my period. Suddenly, each time, their reaction would do a complete 180°, and this was from other women. Women who have had, or who have known others who have had, this very same pain.

It can be so powerful that I cannot walk standing up straight due to how contracted the muscles are in my pelvis and thighs. I was in enough pain to not even care about the small-pizza-sized blood stain on the back of my pants as I struggled to walk out. I was escorted off the plane in one of those airport golf carts. When I explained to the woman assisting what the problem was and asked if there was anywhere I could go lie down and call my husband, she became visibly uncomfortable and told me there was nothing else she could do for me and I’d have to walk myself to a cab. It might be the most vulnerable I have ever felt.

This pain, despite being a disorder and not typical menstrual pain, at least had space to exist in a time before our Euro-centric patriarchy. Even if not fully understood, women had the option to sit that time out and care for themselves, and even be cared for. “For instance, Ojibwe women traditionally secluded themselves in a moon lodge during menstruation. Women retreated to a small wigwam, where they slept separated from their husbands and infants. They refrained from sex, food preparation, and ceremony. They were careful not to step over young children, touch babies, men, or communal food. Female friends and relatives ensured the menstruating woman was safe and fed, and they helped care for her family in her absence” (Pember 2019).

On this trip, I learned how much I am capable of, and how I wish I didn’t have to be capable of it. I learned because of this episode that my grandmother and five of her sisters had to have hysterectomies for their endometriosis pain. I mourned them and all of the other women that have to push through this pain every month because we live in a society that no longer reveres the menstrual cycle, and instead has made it so taboo that support is considered only in the rarest, most extraordinary cases, despite at least 10% of people with uteruses suffering endometriosis. My own disability cannot be accommodated because 1) it is sporadic, 2) it affects predominantly women, 3) it is considered ‘‘normal’’ and ‘‘natural’’, and 4) it will not be diagnosed until myself AND a doctor agree to an invasive surgery.

It often feels as though my life is at the whim of my uterus. I was put in the position of having to ignore my needs for comfort and safety to engage in an experience that most other participants didn’t have to think twice about. I was forced to cast aside my shame and ask for community. I begged for it. Some compassionate older women on the plane offered comfort and their own pain relievers. Some queer kin offered a listening ear, and some similar experiences. But others walked on by, embarrassed of the scene I was causing or indifferent towards the situation altogether.

This experience makes me curious about a future where we recenter the lunar calendar and flow through the cycle of the moon as was always done before. How would our day-to-day lives look different? How would expectations be managed differently? What would “productivity” truly look like, especially for women? How would medicine change? What would happen to our relationships with our bodies? What would happen to men’s relationships to us?

♡ Hal

Once again, read my connected poem for this article here.

Work Cited:

Pember, Mary Annette. ““Honoring Our Monthly Moons”: Some Menstruation Rituals Give Indigenous Women Hope.” Rewire News Group, 20 Feb. 2019, rewirenewsgroup.com/2019/02/20/monthly-moons-menstruation-rituals-indigenous-women/.

Share

in-utero, ex-utero

when the blood pours out,
soaking through every layer,
and you are hinged at the hip not by choice,
tell me again about being humbled,
tell me again about drawing attention to yourself.

when you are 38 000 feet up in the wind
and your vision starts to blur,
alone and laboring and painfully unpregnant,
tell me again about ginger ale for the nausea,
tell me again about those extra strength naproxen i threw up into a YVR bathroom.

when you have to ask the stewardess for a bag of ice to keep you conscious, 
and she doesn’t know yet she’s going to be calling a medic 
to escort you off the plane,
tell me again about walking it off,
tell me again about not letting my pain make others uncomfortable.

when 3 older women you will never meet again 
dump out their purses to offer you their own pads and medications,
afraid to see this grown baby go limp under a lit up call bell,
tell me again about motherhood, 
tell me again about the rules you so naively think that my body believes in.

♡ Hal

Share

Just for context for all of this: I am not a professional in any of these topics. I am an adult with ADHD and autism. This is to say I have trouble with social cues and sometimes forget that some people exist.

I don’t thinking making friends as an adult is any more difficult than in grade school. As a matter of fact, I think it’s easier to make friends in adulthood. We have more free will and more experience, and more need for friendship. It can be as simple as signing up for a class, talking to the new guy at work, getting someone’s number at the dog park. Nerve-wracking, maybe, but not hard at all. So why do so many of us feel like we have no friends as adults, and never will?

It isn’t meeting people that’s challenging. There are people everywhere. It’s actually maintaining the friendship once you’ve started it. First of all, we probably only see these people within a certain context. This will usually be the same context as however you met them. But, eventually, the fitness program ends, or you leave your job, or your dog dies. Suddenly, this excuse you once had for consistently spending time with someone is gone. We all have such different schedules and routines, how are we meant to keep seeing each other now? There might not even be any real closure to it, sometimes life just gets busy. As a kid you have to see these people everyday, it’s forcibly consistent. When you’re grown, though, one day you just stop showing up.

Outside of these maintenance challenges posed by timelines defined beyond our control, the context in which you know this friend could be the limitation itself. As humans, we are very good at setting rules and obstacles for ourselves where there are none, as a perceived means of protection. We are social beings; our survival has always depended on others, so it’s only natural that we would want to keep ourselves from overstepping for fear of being rejected by the pack. This means we might decide to keep our relationships contextual. If we only ever see Suzy at book club, we are safe, because we know the pattern and we know the rules. If one day we think about trying to ask Suzy to go to the mall, alarm bells start to go off, because this isn’t consistent with our relationship with her. Your brain says NO! don’t ask her to do that, it might be weird and she might not want to and she might say no and maybe she’s also allergic to malls. Be shameless and just ask. You can find a new book club if it somehow goes so terribly that that’s required (but it almost definitely won’t be). However, if you manage to push past the mental resistance from sheer willpower, or lack of rejection sensitivity, and being changing the context of your friendship, a new problem arises: novelty.

Novelty is a challenge when developing new relationships because it decenters connection. While, yes, sharing new experiences with someone is bound to deepen the connection if positive, the same novelty could foster a sense of anxiety that lingers throughout the experience, casing us to focus on our own nerves rather than connecting with the other person. This can happen when stressors like unfamiliar environments or people distract you from connecting. The best way to avoid this is to either 1) go the more antisocial route and plan to spend time together somewhere that you know and/or is less crowded, or, 2) go the more adventurous route and choose to do an activity that will take your mind off the stressors. Something that requires concentration like a new physical skill or art form. Just be sure that it’s an activity you can do in tandem and bond over. Something not too competitive, frustrating, or individual. I think the best is when you can hang out with someone without having to plan a reason or activity, but that usually comes as you unlock a higher degree of friendship. And speaking of higher degrees of friendship, here comes the final, greatest challenge: maintenance.

If you manage to consistently see this person enough to be comfortable trying to spend time together in a different context, and subsequently successfully do that, the next step is to just checks notes keep doing that?! But how?? As someone who was constantly (and I do mean constantly) flaked on by people growing up, I learned to prefer my own company. By not even asking to hang out with someone, I was ensuring that I wouldn’t be met with the disappointment of cancelled plans after getting my hopes up. While it was really important for me to develop the skill of being fine on my own rather than codependence, I feel that collectively we have all veered too far into the other direction. We are no longer willing to tolerate our friends being actual people. I can remember a time when close friends were like our siblings; if they did something we didn’t like, we might talk to them or fight about it or take a bit of distance for awhile, but you always came back to each other because the bond was almost always greater than the betrayal. Before, your bestie had to kiss our boyfriend or kill your hamster to be permanently taken out of rotation. It seems that now, though, any little thing can instill the urge to remove, block, unfriend, and it really is that easy to never speak to someone again, never give them a chance to make up with you.

Maintaining a friendship can come with many challenges: time, distance, lifestyle. The biggest obstacle, however, is always ourselves. You say you just don’t have time to talk to them, make time. They live too far away? You made time, now make the trip. Can’t do that, or their schedule doesn’t allow your visit? Facetime. No time or just not a fan? Short video or voice clip. Can’t make that work? Text. Broken thumbs? Someone can help you write a letter. Y’all are all about ‘’if they wanted to, they would’’ until the ‘’they’’ is YOU. And you might be thinking: well, I’m too scared and this person doesn’t do all of these things for me anyway so they probably just don’t want to, wah, wah, wah. Consider this: they are just as scared or overwhelmed by the idea of reaching out, and think the exact same thing about you not wanting to spend time together. So, if you care about this person enough, suck it up, find the courage for the both of you, and start showing up more consistently. It might be hard at first, but when your friend notices you actually taking an interest and regularly wanting to spend time with them, they will eventually pick up the slack. If they don’t, and you feel really betrayed and discouraged by this, COMMUNICATE!! Your friend might be going through something they don’t want to stress you out with, or trying to take a break from social media, or still not be confident in your friendship. After all, we’re all just people. But when you just assume they hate you or cut them off, you’re punishing yourself, and them, for no reason. And potentially losing a good friend for good.

Signed, the lonely anxious friend.

Whether you’re at the stage of meeting people, levelling up your connection, or maintaining your friendship, do 2 things today to be a better friend. Let someone vent, make them a card just because, send them a video update of your day, subscribe to their Substack (hint-hint).

Subscribe

Sending Reels is great and all, but don’t forget to say hey once in a while and ask what’s going on in their life.

Send this to someone you want to be a better friend with.

Share

♡ Hal

Read the story about it here.

Blood-Strangers

Freckles and a button nose.
I look in the mirror closely,
but the map I trace
never resembles her.

I shut my eyes tight,
as tight as I can,
and in the darkness,
I inspect the memory.

I feel around in the dark.
Where is she?
I remember she is fat.
She doesn't feel fat.

I cut myself
while making dinner,
and it smelled like the time
we rolled thirty dollars in pennies
on her kitchen table.

I reach out in the dark
and still can't find her.
How long was her hair?

Somewhere around the shoulders 
by now, I think.
Always must have been 
somewhere around the shoulders.

A mirror is not a map,
and a photograph
is not a memory.

Nobody remembers
who you are anymore.

The only name on my
birth certificate
is mine.

A DNA test
will never know
the secret ingredient
in your cookies.

A calendar is a diary
and a warning.

Just like your briefcase,
which was already empty 
when I got it.

Nobody remembers
who you used to be.

I know her eyes are blue,
but what kind of blue?
I remember they were so vivid.

Someone once told me
they were more of a dull grey.

Her eyes were brown.

♡ Hal

Subscribe now

Share

My grandmother is the strongest woman I know. I didn’t find out her real name until I was 10. She is my Algonquin DNA, though she still proudly calls herself an Indian.

I have just freshly dyed my hair a vibrant red. This is something my nan did hundreds of times, often leaning back over a kitchen sink. I would never describe her as vain. Not any more so than most women of her generation, anyway. There is just something about red box dye that makes us as women feel innately more powerful. I will look like her at my wedding.

As she grew older, she had to be convinced to let her hair come out grey. This decision still makes me sad. Her short, fiery locks were always to me a symbol of rebellion and confidence I could look up to. It’s a look that demands attention. While I think women should be allowed to age without this expectation of maintaining a mythical standard of beauty, I know she wasn’t truly done being a cherry bomb. This was the first of many times I would come to notice that her body is not her own.

After that would be the stroke that came during her valve replacement surgery. This woman, so ordinarily full of colour, now lay before us, bedridden, and completely blue. As a child, I remember her physical therapy for regaining strength in her hands. I couldn’t understand why she was getting frustrated to tears using playdough. Her signatures on our birthday cards haven’t been the same since, but she has never stopped writing them. I intend to get one of her shaky ‘‘xoxo’’s tattooed to my hand, so she can write with me forever, and I remember to never take that ability for granted.

Later, it would be the myriad of doctors she would have to continue to see to keep her body functioning. Even before her stroke, my nanny had lived with a rare and complex combination of autoimmune conditions. My father recalls the first time he saw her cry, when the doctor called to tell her she had lupus. She was only 31, and it just got more complicated from there. It is hard enough to be taken seriously by a doctor as a woman. She needs to see a different specialist for every body part and system that she has. I attended one of these appointments with her recently. We had to drive an hour away, and spend another hour in the waiting room, exposing her body to a host of potentially life-threatening germs in the height of cold and flu season. As none of her specialists ever consult with one another on her very special case, he spoke to her for fewer than ten minutes before sending her home because he lacked any helpful information or advice regarding her conditions.

She is a smart woman. I think she just hopes to go soon. I hope she at least gets that on her terms. She should be enjoying the years she has left, free of the shame that she has already carried her whole life as a larger-framed woman.

Though throughout my life she has just continued to shrink, she still has big ‘ole clompers (I had to be funny because I was starting to cry). Whenever I find myself shoe shopping, another inherited guilty pleasure, I admire that she has given me my sturdy foundation, both literally and figuratively. I have always been made to feel ashamed of my ‘‘masculine’’ broad shoulders and wide feet, but I got them from the most womanly woman I’ve ever known.

Read the poem about it here.

♡ Hal

I love you forever, Nanny. We miss you so much already 🤍. You were so strong. Dad said he will hold our baby for you.

Subscribe now

Share

I remember being a kid, and always being so excited to go back every September. I would get to see my friends again, and wonder what I’d get to learn this time around. These experiences, paired with the fact that I’m studying to become a school teacher, make my dread of the upcoming academic year all the more ironic.

_

For some context, I’ve always been considered by others to be a great student. By high school, however, a combination of unmanaged ADHD, unsuspected autism, unacknowledged anxiety, and poorly-medicated depression resulted in a rapid decline in all grades and motivation. It wasn’t always visible from the outside; I was still on student council, still giving passionate presentations, still ‘’smart’’.

It started with math. I couldn’t wrap my head around some of the concepts. I’d always been considered a gifted student, and so I’d never learned to study, or to ask questions. My motivation to complete assignments dwindled as well. Eventually, I’d have so many unsubmitted assignments that I’d make myself sick with anxiety at the thought of going to class. So I wouldn’t. Consequently, they piled up even more. When I managed to force myself to write something, anything, I would get a good grade and beat myself up over not doing it sooner. I passed many of my classes due to a mix of genuine skill, and most likely pity on the teacher’s part (I’m going to guess about 40-60 there).

People were probably annoyed at our graduation with what they could only believe was my fake modesty, but I was genuinely shocked when it was announced that I was graduating with honours. I didn’t understand how it was possible after failing more than one class in my senior year. My marks in other areas, combined with my in-school leadership, seemed to prove more valuable. I got lucky.

_

During that final year of high school, everyone talks about what’s coming next. Due to logistical issues with my university of choice, I had settled on applying to my hometown college. People saw me as someone with more potential than that, but by this point I completely lacked confidence in any academic skill I may have once posessed. When pressed, I would go on about financial struggles. This was, and still is, very true. However, there was something that I was refusing to admit. I am not smart anymore. At least, not any smarter in comparison to all of the other students at my school prepping for post-secondary.

It fucks with your brain to be told you are this one thing your whole life, and then watch as everyone else around you starts to also become that thing while you struggle to keep up. It sounds stuck-up, ungrateful, whatever, but being considered one of the smartest people in your school sets expectations anyone could collapse under. This is something I’ve seen many other neurodivergent people lament once in adulthood. You coast your whole life, and miss out on developing so many skills. You don’t hit the same milestones as everyone else, and sometimes don’t even know the things your peers seem to have all figured out. In the end, you come out feeling behind. You feel like a fraud, and bringing up how you’re actually not that smart, that it’s just a label that stuck, makes you look like a massive humble-bragging tool.

The truth is, I was jealous of the girls who could keep notes, get a bad mark, and then write better ones. I was in awe of the boys who could show up to 6am practice and still confidently walk into a lab test without hopelessly skimming the textbook until the bell rang. I was a hyperlexic child. I grew up bilingual, read a lot, and have a very naturally associative mind. It makes me a good writer, but it never taught me those skills that my peers learned out of necessity. I could memorize information by making stories out of it in my head, which is a useful skill until you start to reach the years when you’re expected to have your own brain, with your own opinions and reasoning. I could never apply study techniques, because I’d never needed to learn anything that wasn’t of interest to me before. Now, I struggle with the foundations of most new subjects, because I’d never properly learned how to learn (I could write a thousand pages on why learning the way we are expected to in western academia isn’t useful to me or people like me, but that not what today’s about).

_

There’s a long story about how I finally got to university, but it’s irrelevant for now. The point is, I eventually enrolled in a Bachelor of Education program, designed specifically for Indigenous students. It was my dream program since my sister showed it to me, and I was trying to figure out how to get in as early as grade 10. I was so scared, but, like many autists would, I approached this new challenge with a plan. I had printed out syllabi, highlighted deadlines, colour-coded Google Calendar entries. Then, like many ADHDers would, I fumbled it all.

I only had my sister to guide me through any of these processes, but she was still undergoing them herself. I couldn’t expect her help all of the time. Still, I was very lucky to be going to the same university as my sister, at the same time. I learned about resources, professors, and on-campus hideaways, but I still had to navigate them mostly by myself. Everything was new and intimidating, and a lot of it still feels that way. It’s designed to be that way. Being there is a privilege, and not everyone gets the same access to the generational knowledge and hushed resources that easy-mode these systems for them.

They don’t tell you that people with disabilities like me can take twice as long to complete their degrees, if they’re even able to, and are supported for that long.

Nobody talks about how common it is even for people without those cognitive challenges to take an extra-year or two, either because a full course load is a hefty expectation (normal), they need a break (normal), or they simply change their minds about their studies (NORMAL).

_

Needless to say, I bit off more than I could chew my first year. I dropped more classes than I added, I took on extra-curriculars that I forgot about, I tried to make friends with people I never saw twice. Adjusing to a new home, a new city, a new routine, and plenty of new people was so much to handle for me before even considering academics. I excelled in some areas, and failed miserably in others. It’s ok, it’s trial and error, right? (it only costs a few thousand per semester… hopefully future me gets a REALLY good job)

In my second year, I learned. I figured out that year-long classes were easier for me to handle than ones that only lasted a semester, so I took 5 (I still didn’t learn from the mistake of taking too many classes at once, but at least I learned something and applied it). When this proved to be too much work for a now chronically-depressed recluse to muster, that anxiety came creeping back in. I couldn’t do anything to force myself to attend classes I was struggling in. I tried to take mostly subjects I enjoyed, but I couldn’t focus for three hours straight on subjects that bored me. When time for assessments came, I was completely lost. I failed 2,5 credits between my first and second years.

In my third year, I took as few classes as I possibly could while still fulfilling my degree requirements. I made sure I was passionate and willing to learn about each one. Then, at the end of October, already two weeks behind, I suffered a concussion.

I couldn’t get out of bed for a week, couldn’t sleep for two. By the third week I was still struggling with looking at screens (a uni necessity). It wasn’t until a month later that I could actually drive myself to school, and it was the scariest 20-minute drive I’ve taken. I was sincerely contemplating dropping out that Christmas. I failed another 2,5 credits that year.

Even though I had other certifications, though, I knew that for my future and my heart it’s important for me to push through the hard times now to live a life that I truly love (not to mention getting a job that can pay back the student loans that I’ve accrued).

_

In total, I have failed 5 credits (6 courses, one of them twice), and barely passed 3 credits (5 other courses). That’s 11 final grades below 55. I got lucky, again, because despite being placed on academic probation, and having a GPA below 54 (minimum 60), my record somehow states an academic status of good standing. Even my academic advisor was confused. I’m taking it as permission to keep going.

Last year, I was meant to graduate from the undergraduate portion of my program to the professional part (student-teaching). At least, that’s the path that’s laid out by the school. Normally, when people are taking a fourth year like this in my specific program, it’s so they can pursue an honours degree before moving onto their bachelor of education. For me, I have to accept that this whole extra year is the bare minimum for moving forward. I have to accept that along the way, instead of accepting myself and my disabilities, I’ve cost myself hundreds of hours and thousands of extra dollars trying to force myself to learn more when I simply couldn’t.

_

This time around, I’ll be taking less hours at work to focus on school (an option I simply didn’t have before). I’m enrolled in our school’s accessibility department, so I’ll have access to notes and even more resources (I don’t think anyone should need diagnostic proof of anything to access these resources if they exist, but for now, for myself, I have to play the game). I’ll be taking year-long classes where possible, and online classes to beat the crippling anxiety that keeps me from going to my lectures. I’m still taking more classes than I’m confident I should for this year, but I’ll have my husband to support me through it, four loving pets at home to help me with studying, and a future worth working hard for.

I don’t believe in myself, but I believe in the people that do. And that’s enough for right now.

_

Anishinaabemowin word of the day: Ningashkitoon! I can do it! (succeed)

_

miigz and props if you read all of that btw

♡ Hal

I’m Halle, or Hal. I am a writer from the kichi sibi (Ottawa River) currently living on odenabe (Otonabee River).

I am a 2025 mentee for Audible’s Indigenous Writers’ Circle.

On my Substack, you will find essays, poetry, short stories, personal updates, and all kinds of stuff. Part of my educational commitment this year is to share what I learn on this platform as well, so also expect writing projects, lecture notes, reading summaries, and book reviews. Consider supporting me to help me write more!

Whoever you are, I want to hear from you, too! Always feel free to comment, write me an email (giiwedinongkwe@gmail.com), or DM me on Instagram (@giiwedinongkwe).

Let’s connect :)

♡ Hal