Growing up, my backyard had not one blade of grass. It was overwhelmed by thistle weeds along with a silver metal play system at the center of it. The front of the house invites you in with a rusty broken door handle that falls off when you go to touch it, and to the left, a large window that opens up to the unfinished painted room, revealing the shattered Christmas ornaments across the ledge that were never put away the last time the tree was put up 2 years ago. Clumps of pet hair. Dirt and dust, decades of old paper trash. If you push past the open pantry door that intentionally blocks out the rest of the front window's view of the house, this is where I learned to comfortably walk on my tip toes and, one day, began to pave a trail through the pile of junk and garbage in a desperate attempt to simulate a normal home life.To your left you would notice the 20+ year old broken dishwasher and a sink full of dishes growing black sludge. I can count on one hand the number of friends I had invited over while I lived there. It was truly a broken home, both psychologically and physically, that to this day I mostly kept a secret.
My single mother did not have time to spend with me. My little brother was born with tumors along his spine and in his brain and later was diagnosed with severe autism. But when it came time to learn to ride a bike without training wheels, my mom found some time. We went to the thistle covered backyard. Over the next hour we became frustrated with each other because I kept failing. We fussed, resulting in my mom quitting and leaving me.
I spent my first $100 on the Hannah Montana DVD series because we couldn't afford cable and I was tired of watching the same season one reruns on channel 5 on saturday mornings. Over time I came to own all of her CD tracks. I remember one morning where the adoration of this character completely overwhelmed me to the point where I blurted to my mother “Do you think I can be a rockstar?” she replied with “no”.
I had this friend of mine growing up who fed my love for nature and the outdoors. We spent years together. She also fed my mind on what intelligence was, and it was not me. “You’re stupid” she would tell me almost daily over these years. Eventually, I convinced myself and others that this was true.
Does everyone undergo some bullying in their life? Imagine getting bullied by your entire Girl Scout troop, parents included. I had to switch groups. I also had to switch groups at summer ski camp for the same reason. I can remember getting left in the woods during geocaching because I suggested an idea on where to look for the last clue. My best friend in middle school slut shamed me for a selfie post, minimized my reasons for why I felt suicidal, and worst of all, she told me I couldn’t get black Doc Martens because she had them.
My mom and I sat next to each other for my high school honors program informational meeting. She planted her doubts in my mind, questioning if this was something I could do. When I wanted to join competitive volleyball after recovering from ACL surgery, I discovered that my mom called the club asking if this was something I could do.
The roots of my system were dark, slimy, and rotten. There was no one around to notice my teeth became so yellow because I didn’t understand the point of brushing your teeth. I certainly didn’t love myself and until I had an AHA moment at 18, I didn’t realize that I lived for myself.
But you know what– the moment after my mom went back inside, I paused, mounted the bike once, and rode it down the driveway and back. A classmate commented on my teeth, and I started to clean them. I found the last clue, alone, while geocaching. I recovered from a busted ACL and tibial fracture in 6 months, and made the team at one of the top volleyball clubs in Minnesota. I earned awards in completing my honors, even earning a spot to deliver a speech at graduation.
Shit got serious when I left for University. It was five years of a constant war cry that only grew louder as I approached the honor of turning my tassel. If we are being real here, and you’ve paid attention to what I just told you, it didn’t start out as a war cry by any means, but whimpers and wails wandering aimlessly about the haphazard trajectory of my future. It's been my entire 23 years of this exact chaotic structure engulfing my mindset and thus existence.
I meticulously wanted to engage both my left and right brain in my discipline. Mathematics had always both fascinated me and instilled an uneasiness in the pit of my stomach. It served as a reminder for my idiocracy as a child and a symbol for superiority and prestige.
Through completing my generals, I found a love for Philosophy. I owe the current trajectory of my life to this subject. It gave me a deeper meaning in approaching life. It taught me to write, think more complexly, and have a logically well thought out argument. I loved pondering complex epistemic questions and asking my own. We can talk about quantum mechanics and artificial intelligence here, if you would like…
So eventually four semesters in, I decided to earn a Bachelors of Science in Economics and minor in philosophy. Economics, for me, encapsulates my love for human behavior in society on a mathematical level. I will argue that math infiltrates every crevice of reality, and as best as we know it to be, and can be quoted by Claudia Gray, “Math doesn't lie”. On the other hand, philosophy satisfied my ever wandering mind on the metaphysical.
Deciding to strive for a Bachelors of Science in Economics with no self-worth and no strong foundation on how to take care of yourself is a suicide mission. In fact it got to a point where I did call the national hotline. It was probably in the same month I submitted an empty calculus III final. I can recall asking my therapist how one could ever believe in themselves. Defeat after defeat I chose to take away a lesson, and learned how to better adapt my mind and values towards my goals. Along the way I began to strengthen my discipline, determination, and belief in the self.
The only art I was familiar with as a kid was my moms scrapbooking and card making with stamps and paper cut-outs. It was really not my style, and turned me off to creating art for a big portion of my life. Of course in school I was exposed to classic works of art, but at the time following a textbook wasn’t my style either.
Three years into my junior year of college, my perspective widened. I lived with four lovely and diversely creative roommates. One is a painter, another a violinist, a fashion designer, and the last a fashion enthusiast with a keen interest in the intersection of fashion, philosophy, and cultural commentary. I was enchanted watching them create their own magic, watching their personality project onto a piece of art.
Each of them inspired me to explore more my own creativity and passions within the artistic space. I was in an era of personal renaissance– I was becoming more creative with cooking and baking, watercolor, and finding any way to inject creativity into my everyday life. Randomly I turned to writing and yoga. It started as a form of self medication, both of which my wellbeing has become dependent on. These practices have helped me to go deeper into heightening self awareness and observation, pose deep reflection, and prune away diseased and dying beliefs and practices I was once endowed with.
During my last couple of years finishing university I grew up and came to master my environment. I ended my last two semesters with a 3.0 GPA taking all my advanced electives at once, so I'm pretty proud of that. I ran a successful time series data analysis in my most challenging course. I went to bed relatively early on Friday and Saturday nights after receiving various forms of praise from my restaurant guests (they never shied away from tips, either), and going to the “club” at the spin studio on saturday mornings. I’ve mastered my breath in my runs, started lifting, found my favorite yoga teacher ever. I had my protein smoothies with San Pellegrino in them and ate my little salmon bowls with homemade peanut sauce. I cut people out who needed to be cut, and set boundaries with others. I was high. I was happy. I thought I was completely healed.
So now, I got rid of almost everything I owned, packed my life up into a Samsonite two piece travel set, and moved to France. I dug up my roots, and planted them in new soil. When I arrived in August of 2023, I didn’t speak any french at all. Completely immersing yourself in an alien environment is a whole new adventure. It has brought out all of my old wounds and insecurities for the better or for the worse. Everyday it blossoms into a more beautiful experience and it is a challenge I am blessed to have received.
I have spent most of my life holding my tongue. Out of the sheer terror of displeasing others I rarely shared my ideas, thoughts, or opinions. Throughout my life I have been strengthening courage, self belief, self love, defiance in the name of self respect, putting myself through challenges in the name of self respect. It is, evidently to me, an organic next step in my evolution to birth the publication of this blog.
This blog serves as a digital footprint of my mind. Her thoughts, her feelings, her opinions. An exposition on my potential and a place for my curiosity and intelligence to grow. I am a student of and for life. It is a place to showcase my vulnerable insides. To spark conversation. To inspire others, in their intellectual pursuits or in personal healing. To offer my perspective on things. To help, maybe, heal the world. Or piss someone off.
This will be a hub for asking and attempting to answer philosophical questions related to metaphysics, artificial intelligence, aesthetics… Comments on socio-political and popular culture. Mindfulness and self reflection pieces.
The current phenomenon I'm experiencing in life right now reminds me of when I rode on the back of a motorcycle on the highway for the first time. I was terrified. I had a choice– either to let go out of fear and die, or commit and hang on.
