rewind << age 25

pride 2018, delores park, san francisco, ca

with a life long friend, jess ("cookie") (not pictured: partner-at-the-time nick, best friend from college and life long friend jon, jon's partner and soon-to-be life long friend sabine)

i had moved to san francisco they year before (sept 2017) after getting back together with college partner, nick

nick and i shared one bedroom and austin, our life long friend that we met in college, lived in the other room in our apartment in glen park, sf

beginning to fall in love with myself again

everything we're wearing we took from my closet that morning.

at this time in my life, i was swirling in a paradox of emotions: immense liberation, sinking back into my old skin, tugging grief, and the iron-blood taste and energetic discomfort of being on the brink something new. i had returned to old friends and a relationship when moving to the west coast, and felt held, seen, and provided the permission slip to re-enter my kooky and witchy interests and ways - ways that i sought out confidently as a child but had abandoned in the years in between.

the recent years were spent living in dc, working for a corporate construction company, making a handful of some of the best friends i'll have for my lifetime, and swirling deep into a depression and addiction to alcohol.

the year before this photo was taken, i was raped while camping with friends, by a stranger - a friend that a then-friend brought along. i was only 24. i blamed myself, my caring ways and curiosity for new friends, and the way i couldn't stop at one drink - often finding myself in a stage of brown out at the end of any drinking night. i carried great shame for carrying that "too open" and "anything goes" demeanor into that night, and had not yet worked through the bulk of these dragging feelings that haunted me.

by the time this photo was taken, i was 25 and i had not yet had the 2 abortions that defined the next year, although it was already clear that my pelvic floor would beg for my loving healing for the next few years, and maybe the rest of my life.

i was beginning to explore the history of Old Norse runes and their magickal meanings. through meditation and speaking to land spirits and ancestors, i began tentatively connecting to the unseen realm in order to witness the trauma that lived in my womb space, to learn to touch and even like my body again without feeling fear, and to connect to the betrayal and bottomless rage i was suppressing.

speaking what was true to me and culling out what did not serve became an overpowering need. i was coughing up things i had attempted to bury, and reached a point where i could admit to myself and nick that i cheated on him twice: kissed a man in israel and slept next to my friend jaim, who was not a platonic friend - we were very much attracted to each other. (separate instances from being raped)

i couldn't see it then, but i was in the beginning stages of becoming a solitary eclectic witch and discovering what spirituality meant to me.

location: san francisco, ca

favorite color: orange, yellow

newest interest: runes, meditation, cooking, ayurveda, going to the gym, yoga, park hangs

current crush: nick nieminen, austin gage, marciano (60-something co-volunteer at the senior center), kieran locke, chris albon, + fifteen other men