Working with recently uncovered family archival material produced from 1940-83 when my paternal grandfather was stationed with the British military in Libya, Malta and Cyprus, I am trying to understand the ways that violence underlines the imperial family unit and how my white, transmasculine, often sick body has been formed and categorised, benefited and suffered at the hands of these structures. In reading the archival material against itself, I am trying to begin to form a way of living that can be both future looking and ongoingly healing whilst enfolding into itself and slowly metabolising the ongoing violences embedded in the ways we have been taught to love. Important theoretical touchstones in forming this practice have been Eve Kosofsky-Sedgwick’s Reparative Reading, Nicholas Mirzoeff’s White Sight and Michelle Murphy’s Alterlife.