#mine met at med school but apparently had gone to the same high school without knowing each other

[ithinkheknowss]

I watched When Harry Met Sally yesterday so now I'm curious how everyone's parents met. Any and all stories are welcome!

#mine met at med school but apparently had gone to the same high school without knowing each other #polls #annie talks

[alloverthegaf]

How are things with your friends going?

lmao they’re not.

super sorry actually because no one’s really asked me this and I took it as a huge opportunity to vent, I hope you don’t mind, obviously none of this frustration is aimed at you, really just the stupid mean fucking universe

I had a few female friends left in the area, and a couple male friends who had moved away but came back occasionally.

I’m pretty convinced at least half the fault lies on me, but it all went to shit.

I was in love and my best friend started dating the guy and told me afterwards. To be fair I acted like it was fine and told myself I was fine but I got so depressed my original meds stopped working and I suddenly found eating so difficult that I lost over 10 kilos in a month. And no one cared. No one checked on me, or asked how I was doing, or spent any extra time with me. Not just the best friend, but the other two girls in the area. They never brought it up, never asked how I was, never mentioned my weight loss, nothing.

I told myself it was fine and to get over it, and me and the same best friend threw a St Pat’s party, 1 year and 2 months after that. The male friends I had mentioned were around: one a super close best friend of mine, the other one that had really gained my trust after multiple nights of encouraging me to cuddle with him because he knew I was touch-starved. That night, being surrounded only by ‘trusted friends’, I got blackout drunk. I woke up to the one who had been cuddling me having sex with me.

I later told the ‘best friend’ about it. She wasn’t overly bothered. Apparently he had gone to the house her boyfriend and by extension her was staying, got super drunk out of guilt, and fucked up the place. She was incredibly mad about how destructive he was, and couldn’t give a fuck what happened to me. She basically equated it to me “not being comfortable” with sex stuff and left it at that. She also told me the other male best friend encouraged him to do what he did.

Without realising it, I buried most of that shit down. I unfriended the two guys and left the bigger old high school group chat they were in and figured that would be the end of it.

But it wasn’t. I had a smaller group chat with the three girls left in the area, including the ‘best friend’. Again, to be fair, I could have pushed them away; I drink too much, I’m overly dramatic and passionate about certain issues. But for so long I felt myself being discarded. One of them moved to Russia for study but even the two left could never be bothered to see me because they had their own boyfriends and lives. And then I got the ‘best friend’ a fucking job where I work, because I had not yet figured out how fucking mad I was, and wanted her to do well. And still neither of them could ever be bothered to see me.

And then I met Ron. In the beginning he was a lovely, friendly respite from my normal life, but obviously he became so much more. And one day I told the three other girls in the chat that I was seeing someone. Me, being someone notoriously put off by relationships, incredibly insecure about myself and my worth, and having very obviously avoided relationships my whole life.

For a while, no one said anything. Eventually, the ‘best friend’ having heard me talk to others at work, asked if ‘it’s the one in Sydney’. I said yes, she said ‘yay’ and that was it. No follow up, nothing from the other two, it was like they didn’t give a shit.

And then the next morning the girl in Russia was having relationship problems and wanted advice and I did my best because she genuinely deserves support and advice about that shit. But then she and ‘best friend’ got super caught up talking to each other about their relationships and ‘best friend’s pregnancy and seemed so fucking interested in each other I finally snapped and left the chat.

So now, I have Ron in Sydney, which unfortunately I can’t go to right now because of covid, and literally no friends in my area, because they’re all either self-absorbed absolute assholes, or I have bad enough character flaws to scare off even the best of friends, and if so, Ron has not found them yet.

But seriously, thank you for asking. I didn’t realise it but I cannot tell you how long I’ve been wanting to get all of that shit off my chest.

#non fandom #Anonymous #ramblings #asks

[writinandwanderin]

Tough Read

Tommy Conlon (Warrior) x Female Reader

Word Count: 1528

Reader meets Paddy at the VA and she becomes a staple in the house.

Warnings: Nothing really just some light makin out.  Let me know if y’all think there should be a part 2 bc I could def write one

No one is supposed to fall in love with the guy like Tommy Conlon. He’s the type of guy that you fuck, and then you leave, or he leaves you, whichever comes first.  No one thought Tommy would be the guy I would end up with.  Little virgin me when I met him, a fucking virgin at 24 if you can believe that.  I met Tommy through Paddy, who I was helping out. Paddy needed a friend and I had free evenings.  I really like Paddy, he’s a sweet guy, trying to make up for the mistakes in his past. He had just started training Tommy when I showed up.  I showed up one day to bring Paddy some dinner, and was greeted by the angriest man I’d ever seen.  This, of course, was Tommy, and he greeted me in, what I came to find out, was the most Tommy way possible.

“Whatever the fuck you’re selling we’re not interested.”

“Uh, I’m not selling anything, is, uh, Paddy here?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Um, my name’s Y/N, I came to bring Paddy dinner.”

Paddy appeared then, looking apologetic,

“Took my problems to the VA, Tommy, just like you said.”

Tommy looks me up and down, and then stalks off into the house.  As I became more and more of a staple in the house and Paddy’s life, Tommy and I ended up interacting more.  He and I got along decently well, and when he made it into the tournament in Miami, Paddy asked me to be his “manager.”  Apparently, Paddy was the trainer, and I was the manager.  I don’t know how common it is to be half in love with your client, but we made it work.  I would do the talking, and Paddy would answer questions about training, regime, diet, weight class, and the rest.  Tommy wouldn’t say anything, just look angry and surly, which I said was perfect for him.  He scowled to hide his smile.

It was at the press open house where Tommy first saw Brendan.  He was sitting next to me, looking sulky, while Paddy talked to a couple of reporters.  I felt Tommy tense, coiled like a spring, and when I look up I can see Brendan.  I only knew him from photos in Paddy’s house, neither of them ever talked about him. It’s disconcerting how normal he looks. He really does just look like a dad, a high school teacher.  He’s looking at Tommy, and Tommy immediately gets up.  I touch his shoulder, but he’s already leaving.  I tell Paddy we’ll be back, and rush out after him.

“Tommy-“

“Let go.”

“Listen, you can’t just walk out like-“

“I can do whatever the fuck I want.”

“Tommy, you have to do this thing right.  The money is one thing, but when you win this, you’ll be a big name, and at least sitting and sulking in front of the cameras is necessary.  Me and Paddy will do all the talking, you don’t have to say anything.  Just come back inside.”

I hate pleading with him, it makes me feel weak, but it’s not like I can do anything else.  It would just make him angrier and the cameras would eat it up.  Tommy stares at me, hard, like he’s trying to catch me lying, and then says,

“I’m not talking to him.”

“You don’t have to.  You don’t have to talk to anyone.”

He stares at me for another minute, and then goes back inside. Brendan is still looking, and I touch Tommy’s bicep to let him know I’m not going anywhere.

I pretty much end up sleeping at Tommy and Paddy’s shared hotel room. Tommy is still tense, and snaps at everybody.  I had to talk Paddy of a ledge for 45 minutes after Tommy said something to him at the casino, and Paddy ended up crying and I tucked him into bed myself, pouring all the mini liquor bottles down the drain for good measure.  Tommy walks in at 3am, and he throws me an angry look before walking to his room.  I follow without hesitation.  He just acts like I’m not there, and begins stripping to get into the shower.  Fuck.

“Tommy,” I say, as he strips off his shirt and pants, standing only in his boxers before me, “I don’t know what you said to Paddy and I don’t need to know, but whatever you said really hurt him.  I know you won’t apologize and I get that it was partially because of the fight, but he has to be present at these fights to train you, you know that right?”

“I don’t fuckin care what he thinks,” Tommy spits, his gaze burning through me.

“Jesus, Tommy, just treat him with some respect,” I snap.

“He doesn’t deserve it.  He’s told you his little sob story, but you don’t know the half of it.  Yeah, I’ll stay focused, don’t you worry about me.”

He stalks off, and I know there’s nothing I can do.  So, I just pass out on the couch, and try to pretend I imagined somebody pushing the hair out of my face an hour later.

Each fight was the same, Tommy left the room, came back five minutes later and immediately wrapped himself in my arms.  I held him, touched his hair, his shoulders, whispered about anything other than the fights.  He comes back shaking with anger after the fight against Mad-Dog, and presses his forehead into my shoulder.  I don’t pretend to know where this intimacy his coming from, but I just accept it.  We both ignore it in the hotel room, I sit want watch TV with Paddy while Tommy skulks in his room.

The news comes during the night.  Someone had tape of Tommy saving those soldiers, and the next thing I knew MPs were knocking on the door, not looking for Tommy Riordan, but for Tommy Conlon.  Paddy and I spend the whole day convincing them not to take Tommy until after the final. Tommy’s no help, of course, he just keeps staring at the screen, where Manny’s wife’s interview is played over and over.  He doesn’t look away even when I turn it off.

Eventually the MPs agree they’ll take him after the fight.  The press and the crowd are eating up this turn of events, but Tommy and I don’t talk about it.  We don’t really say anything.  The MPs stand watch in the room, Paddy has disappeared, and I’m just sitting, watching Tommy, waiting.  

They come and get Tommy for the final.  He looks at me, wanting something I couldn’t see.  

“You’ll be fine,” I say, smoothing the hoodie he’s wearing.  He doesn’t say anything.

That’s the fight I watch, and Tommy is so broken by the end of it I can hardly breathe.  When he and Brendan walk out, supporting each other, I sprint so I can meet them in the hall. They make it all the way to the parking lot before I get to them, and I go up to Tommy, touching him, and he collapses on me, crying in earnest, telling me he’s sorry.

“Tommy, there’s nothing to be sorry for, nothing.”

“I lost-“

“It’s okay, Tommy, you’re fine, that’s all that matters.”

Brendan looks at me, and helps me take Tommy to the medical area.  They clear them both, taping Tommy’s cracked rib and giving him something for pain, which I slip in my pocket.  I take him to the room they had laid out for the finalists. The MPs are still there, but I refuse to let them take him in state.  I end up saying that they can arrest me if he’s gone by morning, and I half drag him to the hotel.  Brendan trails behind, looking after us.  I clean Tommy’s wounds with a damp cloth at the hotel room, kneeling in between his legs on the bed.  He looks down at me and says,

“I just couldn’t.  I couldn’t. His fucking kids needed it and I couldn’t.”

“It’s okay Tommy.  There’ll be other fights.  You’ve done so much for Manny’s family, she’ll understand.”

“I hate that he’s still my brother.  He abandoned me and my mom and I still couldn’t do it.”

“You still love him, and that’s okay.”

Tommy leans his forehead against my shoulder again, and I let him rest there, cleaning the bruised and bloodied knuckles on his hand.  His other hand, already bandaged, reaches and buries itself in my hair.  I tell myself I won’t let him kiss me, not that he would want to, because it’s just after the fight and I’d be looking to get my heart broken, but when he does press his mouth to mine, and don’t say anything, just let him explore my mouth as he pulls me onto his lap.  After a while, he starts plucking at my shirt, but I pull back,

“Not tonight, Tommy.  Not with the rib and the pain meds.”

A ghost of a smile flits across Tommy’s face.

“They taped it, unless you plan on getting rough.”

“If this offer still stands when we get back to Pittsburgh, I just might.”

#tommy conlon #tommy riordan #tommy conlon imagine #warrior imagine #tom hardy #imagine tommy conlon #tommy riordan imagine #i just rewatched this movie i love it so much #tom hardy is such a snack in it #imagine #also this title is garbage i'm sorry #imagine tom hardy

[vvakarians]

I need to be honest finally, I can’t just keep glossing over shit. I’m hoping that this helps me find the courage to tell my therapist so I can move on or at least get help in managing things. If you wanna talk to me about it go ahead, but I’m really just making this post because I need to get my feelings out. I’ve had too many spirals recently. It’s also an extremely long post. Warning for: #sexual abuse #emotional manipulation #emotional abuse #mentions of suicide #mentions of an eating disorder

I was emotionally manipulated into believing I needed to be the only emotional support for someone, three times. And if I was not around, things would get worse. It first happened with my mother, if you don’t know the definition of emotional incest: “Covert incest, also known as emotional incest, is a type of abuse in which a parent looks to their child for the emotional support that would be normally provided by another adult” as per wikipedia’s definition. I was in this type of a relationship with my mother for *years*, it doesn’t happen anymore because I have distanced myself from her enough and she has gotten to I hope a healthier point where she doesn’t look to me for this. But as a child I was not allowed to show any emotion unless it was in support of my mother, aka sympathy, empathy, what have you. I was not taught how to control my own emotions, I was shown that things are intense all the time and at the same time I was not allowed to show it. Unless I was sick I could not be upset in any capacity. My father was and is still gone all the time, as a child my mother looked to me for emotional support until it became a horrific problem. My mother could act out, but when I was sad or angry I was told that was bad and I was a bad person for feeling that. Despite my mother being healthier in this aspect, this has fucked me right up to this day.

The second was a girl I met my 7th/8th grade year. She saw someone who was easily to manipulate, easy to capture the attention of and ran with that. I was put in a position where I could only pay attention to her or she would get extremely upset, she pressured me into doing things I was very uncomfortable with and made me believe that all my friends were out to get me. Not only that but she sexually harrassed me (or sexually abused idk really how to word that one) by making me participate in things over RP and once in the middle of the goddamn lunch room made me sit in her lap and she called me her “little jew sl*ve”. When I began self harming she never once was concerned, she was only concerned for herself and how I could fit in to her equation. I still have panic attacks when I see her in pictures, or when I passed her in the hall at one of the highschools I went to, as well as the community college I went to.

The third was someone who I very much believe has no love for anyone, not even themselves. And I am terrified of them, genuinely. Most of you know I have PTSD/C-PTSD, most of this comes from them and my family. They exist on this website, they were able to kick me out of a fandom, and they are a reason I fucking go into a spiral when I think of going to a town 45 minutes away. I met them in 7th grade, they were my best friend until my second half of senior year. Now, I did and said some shit to them I have learned from, and I genuinely apologized for it. They can be mad about what I said in that situation but I have learned and grown from that. This person has severe mental illness, possible psychosis, possible schizophrenia, and for sure anxiety/depression/PTSD from the second person I mentioned. Now, I say that because they knew I have severe anxiety, they knew I had been abused, so they knew they could get in and make me only listen to them, have an obligation to them only because I didn’t want my best friend to be without me. They also knew I wouldn’t fight back even if I panicked during what they did. This person also sexually abused me, despite me being visibly uncomfortable they made me talk about things, their tone was *always* predatory. They eventually revealed to me they had been raped by the second person, and that they would rather not do this anymore. To which I was relieved. While all that shit was going on, they were refusing to get help for supposed auditory and visual hallucinations, they *refused* to get help for severe suicidal intentions with themself. When I was over at their house they used the excuse for their mental illness to tell me horrible things they had seen, while in the dark, with all the windows open and the door unlocked to the patio. In the middle of nowhere on the plains. I was trapped, my parents were 45 minutes to an hour and a half away, and when I told them to stop they would not. I was there to entertain their imagination and illness. I was terrorized for years and had to make sure I listened to ASMR on loop so I didn’t go anxiety crazy. When I was in my second semester of high school they had a break down and told me they had harmed or wanted to harm themselves, that they wanted to die. And I had had it, I was suffering from a terrible eating disorder, I was being openly abused in my house by parents and grandparents. I was being bullied severely at school and was in the middle of trying to get a 504 because my grades were suffering. I was dealing with the fact that I had also been a victim of p*dophilia from a 17 year old when I was 13-14. It was not a matter of listening to them and being there for them. I could do that. But they wanted me to be their therapist and support their habit of staying in this horrible loop of illness. I told them they needed to seek help, they told me not to tell anyone in turn. About *hurting themselves and wanting to die*. So, frustrated and upset I figured it’d be better to have a mad friend than a dead friend. And I reported them. Ofc they got pissed at me, they went out of their way to misinform the people I reported it to that checked on them. Then they made me promise not to say anything a second time. But I did. I reported them a second and final time. That’s when they got diagnosed with possible psychosis and put through therapy and meds. And they were so angry with me. I came to school the next day without any make up on, barely showered, and in my pajamas. I was severely depressed because my best friend was angry with me. I felt like I had done something wrong and my world was shattered. But I told them I was just worried and things seemed to be bumpy but relatively okay.

Cut to a month later and I find out they had poisoned an entire GSA against me and had began to turn a good friend of mine as well. They had told them I reported them and their life was in shambles. I was publicly called out at an event and told I was an asshole and that it was my friends choice to tell people about their problems. This same event, I am now apparently banned from because I was “abusive”. At their college, our only uni, I am banned from any resource or LGBT event that I could use. Because I had the audacity to say “stop, i can’t do this anymore. We have to get better”. I have been violently misgendered, threatened, and told that I was abusive because I didn’t listen and didn’t want to be their therapist anymore. They claim to have PTSD from me. Someone who did nothing but try to get them help. They claim that I instead used them as a therapist. A person that I dropped everything for since I was 12-13 to the age of 17-18. They claim I did everything to them that they did to me. All because I cared. I don’t even want to go to the uni they go to, but the fact that I am supposedly banned for things I didn’t do? For things that were done to me? That is so invalidating. To know that they have this entire fucking narrative in their head that they tell people online? And in the same fandoms I’m in too? I’m terrified. 

Idk, it’s just a lot of things that I’m dealing with that I’m still not quite okay about. 

Just today I felt that familiar, “I’m a bad person because I’m having a break down and I can’t help someone as much as I want to” all because of all this shit. And that’s not the truth. I can be not okay, I can take a moment to breathe, things will be okay. It’s just a lot to deal with at once.

#quiet #y'all don't have to read this lmao #i just need there to be something here because it happened and i just need to tell someone even if it's an internet void lmao

[nythroughthelens]

"Love is so short, forgetting is so long..." I grew up believing everyone around me could die at any moment. My parent's religion was an end times religion and so the childhood books that I used to learn to read featured colorful illustrations of people dying in fires as (their) god killed them during the last days which would presumably be happening at any minute. 

I was told that the people in my classes at school who were not the same religion would fatefully end up just like the people in those illustrations. My inner voice knew this seemed suspect since I actually really liked most of the people in my classes at school (much to the distress of my parents). But that early insistence that the world would burn along with my 'worldly' friends and first crushes informed how I felt about everyone around me. If my parents went away for a weekend, I was convinced they would never come back and I would immediately grieve as they were halfway out the door. 

If I left my teenage friends as I did when I was taken (not at will) to live in New Mexico for a year in High School to forget them once and for all, I grieved for the loss of them as if I would have never seen them again (I did of course. The year long trip - a last ditch attempt to get me to keep on going with the religion - didn't work at all).

While my parents used that fear that the current world would end to constantly try to convert and save people, I translated that fear into an almost nihilistic embrace of life in my late teens and early twenties after they disowned me and I moved out on my own. Long after my parents and that religion was out of my life, I carried that feeling with me: the one that hinted to me persistently that every day could be my last (since I was now 'worldly') and every person I cared about could perish at any second. It was like a locket I had been wearing around my neck for so long that it burned into my chest searing its impact deep into in my soul. Every moment felt like it could be the final one.

All conversations, even the silliest ones, felt as if they had a profound shadow edging its way over every joke. Shared experiences had a bittersweet impact. 

I never said goodnight to a friend or lover without wondering if I told them how much they meant to me or if I properly resolved any issues out of a subconscious feeling that I could potentially wake up with them gone. Regret was something I feared more than loss. I worded that last paragraph in past tense but the truth is I still carry that fatalism with me as if it is woven into the fabric of my existence.

It's one of the reasons I initially went into pre-med when I finally decided to go to college. Death, which always seemed imminent, just felt like another experience on the spectrum of life and figuring out how our strange outward structures kept us waking up every day was an ongoing fascination. "My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing..." I instinctively said yes to Brooke Shaden when she asked me at the last minute if I wanted to come speak at a creative retreat she was having this past weekend. Another speaker had to bow out due to a circumstance of loss and I was apparently on the list of speakers for next year so she messaged me asking if I could come speak and attend the retreat. 

It was a reflex reaction to say yes to that request. That deeply embedded fatalism that runs rampant in my bloodstream sent shivers up my arm when I thought of missing something profound. This happens to me often. It's a paradoxical reflex I carry with me alongside anxiety. Imagine saying yes to jumping out of a plane while also being mortally afraid of heights and a loss of control. 

In some ways this weird fatalistic reflex reaction has worked out to my advantage in the past few years as I have literally found myself saying yes to getting into a helicopter while also feeling like my heart would unceremoniously hurl itself up my throat and out of my mouth (for example).

"Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example,'The night is shattered and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'" It was in Western Greenland nearly a year ago on an icebreaker that I remember standing on the deck outside at midnight thinking about the weirdness of time as a concept. 

Earlier that day I had seen a documentary about how time flows differently in the Arctic where there are seasons of darkness and seasons of light.

In a place where darkness and light dictate life and where death tip toes on the perimeters of reality teetering on the thinning ice, time is simultaneously more profound and less profound. That night, I watched ice float across the vast sea as the snow covered mountains jutted up from the water like heartbeats until the dark blue whisper of night fell onto the sea like a blanket and the impermanence of Earth and humanity was tangible in that moment as if I could touch the ephemerality with my frozen fingertips.

"Reality is a permeable membrane that time slips in and out of, and time is malleable, bent by the wings of a plane or the cracking of ice sheets."

The above sentence is one that I wrote down that night that has haunted me every since.

Until this past weekend. I spent a year thinking about the above encounter. When I had to write about my book during this year of pondering all of this, I wrote about how fascinated and appalled I was by mortality, about how time simultaneously feels like a thief and an absurd imagined concept. "Love is so short, forgetting is so long..." I cried and laughed with so many other creative spirits this past weekend, maybe more than I ever have. While I initially went as a speaker, I relished meeting everyone and sharing in their own mini and major moments of catharsis.

A light switched on in my soul though when I was introduced to another of the speakers. We shared stories about a mutual friend (ironically the Astronaut Commander Hadfield who I was with during the Arctic encounter described above) and laughed a lot. 

I wasn't aware of what he was speaking about or what his story was until he briefly answered what he would be speaking about before we had to go to scheduled morning lecture. His name is Jeremie Saunders and he was born with Cystic Fibrosis and he will die at any point in the next 10 years, maybe sooner, maybe later. Who knows? Again, time and mortality are simultaneously absurd.

It wasn't until I heard him give his talk though that everything shifted for me. His talk wasn't about how he has perceived his life as carrying out a death sentence but rather how he views his knowledge of his own shifting expiration date as a gift because it has let him live in a way that has caused him to embrace the life and breaths he is living and breathing now. (please check him out: he has a podcast called Sickboy that “focuses on the absurd, inspirational, educational, and often times, hilarious stories of everyday people who are living with serious, chronic & terminal illnesses.” It’s brilliant). The thing is, we are all going to die. All of us. I had heard this fact poignantly stated by Commander Hadfield in the Arctic in the context of explaining his own philosophy on life. 

This isn't the first time I have thought about this. In fact, I have thought about it for decades. It has peppered every fatalistic thought I have had. 

At that time, I remember looking around the room when Commander Hadfield stated that truth. I heard the audible gasps and witnessed the uncomfortable shifting in chairs.   We avoid thinking of the fragility of our own mortality at the expense of enjoying it to its full extent because we think somehow that not thinking of it will render us immortal. If we never think about it maybe we can cheat the life cycle and transcend this mortal existence.

It's the weightiness of how we perceive time along with the lightness of our perception that alters our vision of life. In truth, we are carrying the DNA of an almost overwhelming amount of people who have all lived and died lives, some short and some long in a relative sense, and those lives have had an impact in some way. So when I listened to Jeremie's perspective, I felt as if I finally heard someone channeling the absurdity of existence in a poignant and hilarious way as if to let everyone know that life is meant to be lived to its fullest extent.

And I knew right then and there with almost unwavering certainty what I want to work on that may span the rest of whatever life I have left. "And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture."

I saw the first photo of me in this post in an end of the retreat slideshow. I remember the moment I walked up that path to see what was in the distance. Surrounded by trees, I felt alive. And in an instant I thought of everything I shared in the first parts of this post and how I have never shared any of that to complete strangers. What an either perfectly complementary or divergent set of thoughts to have. 

"Love is so short, forgetting is so long..." I met so many people like Kristina and Jeremie this weekend who created a ripple in the fabric of my soul. 

I looked into people's eyes and ugly cried with every ounce of my being. I shared deep belly laughter with more people than I can count on two hands and hugged everyone as if I would never see them again (because that is what I do as I have just established in this post.) 

I never once went to bed each night wondering if the day was complete enough in thoughts, words, actions. 

Brooke, beyond being an incredible artist, is also a connector of souls. 

Thank you Brooke.

And thank you to everyone who inspired me and touched me in such an indelible way. 

You may have also inadvertently just shaped the rest of my career. --- * all quotes aside from one of mine are from one of my favorite poems by Pablo Neruda - Tonight I Can Write (Poem 20) - if you are unfamiliar - this video below is my favorite way to experience it...

(it’s part of a playlist I made a long time ago about all the scenes and videos that have made a huge impression on my life and art if you are curious: Scenes that have stuck to my ribs and clung to my heart) The beautiful forest photos in this post were taken by Kim Winey.

#death #life #art #vivienne gucwa #brooke shaden #jeremie saunders