3 minute read
a Word. Tamara Leigh
aword.
TamaraSanaaLeigh
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I've written this a couple times and it just hasn't felt right. Now, as I write, it is January 1st, 2023. Maybe I needed to get here to find the words. It has been a ridiculously hard couple of years. 2022 wasn't 2020 but it still was at times excruciating. I feel like the world fell apart around us in 2020, 2021 we were the walking dead trying to figure which way was up and 2022 was about digging deep to figure out who we were, look at the situations around us and get ready for 2023. I personally made some MAJOR changes in that 3yr stretch. Under pressure, stress, grief, sadness, loss, lack and depression are NEVER a good time to make life changing decisions. But sometimes thats what it takes to move us. I left and/or lost some of the things that meant more to me than anything else in the world. They were things that I felt like defined me, they were things that I thought would be a part of my life forever. There are endless possibilties behind unopened doors but that doesn't make them any harder to open or any less sad to close them behind you. But that is change, change is life and life only stops if you let it. And it's so, so short- why would you miss a minute of it?
Meanwhile, 2022 with all that introspection and contemplation, I think alot of us found some amazing and beautiful things out about ourselves. I think we took new risks and found new hope and started opening up some of those new doors- by choice or by necessity.
Even Blaque/OUT made some amazing jumps. In 2023, we are OFFICIALLY a subscription-based magazine! It is a HUGE level-up so make sure you support these phenomenal Black & Brown Creatives and subscribe to Blaque/OUT Magazine (www.blaqueout.com). I can't let the first issue of the year pass without thanking each and every reader, each and every subscriber but above all else, each and every writer, artist, photographer, thinker and influencer who make Blaque/OUT what it is. I might be the heart but they are literally everything else!
Also a huge thank you to Javannah Davis and Brittan Hardgers who have been with us since the very first issue. You've both kept this thing alive in moments I didn't even have the heart to. Thank You!
Happy New Year to and from the entire Blaque/OUT Family!
Editor-In-Chief
