excuse my hiatus all, there’s been a lot going on. and by “a lot” i mean being hijacked again by social media, getting trapped inside my mind and (drum roll please…) turning 20!

reaching this new decade has been challenging to say the least. now that i can quantify my time in this body neatly into two decades, four segments of 5 years, the destructive patterns i’ve followed through the years have made themselves more prominent, begging to be understood and integrated as fuel for positive change.

i could never have imagined myself happy, and although mental illness still tries to cloud my vision, i recognize the ways i’ve flourished through the concrete. i see it in the friends i’ve been blessed to keep, in the way i let them take a picture of me smiling with all my 32s and don’t snatch the phone to delete it. i feel it in each poke of the tattoos i lovingly decorate my body with instead of mutilating it.

it’s been an honor to inhabit this body. pushing myself to free expression regardless of perception has been uncomfortable in the face of career expectations, corportate linkedins, and business professional photoshoots where i pull my dyed locs out of view and airbrush my piercings out of the final photo but its been rewarding in my mirror, where i know i can no longer sacrifice myself to coddle the fears of my parents and manipulate my being into some diluted and easily digestible front. the elation of finally looking at myself and seeing ME, the same me that has existed since 2004 and the me that will be come 2070, all at once is incomparable.

im scared for the ways my 20s will force me to grow, but i revel in the knowledge that the unforeseen and devastating obstacles of the past have forged the indestructible parts of me. i anticipate more that will block my path, and i am prepared to overcome it and excited to grow into the person i never dreamed i could be.

here are some pictures of me that i feel encapsulate my journey. where ive begun, who ive been along the way, and me now :)