“I was the life of every party, and the death of every relationship.”
This is My Recovery.
No Anesthesia.
No MALARKEY.
All love.
🥰
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A black and white photowalk through downtown and the Bellingham waterfront, chasing lines, contrast, and quiet geometry.
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After four years of silence, I took my body back—at night, on a downtown parkade, dancing without permission or apology. This wasn’t nostalgia. This was recovery in motion. A declaration that joy, movement, and instinct get to live here again. Free as a bird from my old patterns.
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A 12.8-mile photo walk through Bellingham became more than a color study in orange, it became a marker of recovery. Long-distance walking helps regulate my nervous system and acts as somatic exposure therapy, keeping me engaged with the world instead of retreating from it. Thirty days ago I threw away my cannabis, and I’m about to cross the longest stretch I’ve been sober off everything in 24 years. One camera, one focal length, and forward motion. This wasn’t about chasing images. It was about clarity, presence, and recovery in real time.
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This is not a villain story. It is an accountability story. Who I loved was real. What we built was real. And so was the damage I caused when fear, anxious attachment, and long-standing patterns took the wheel. I ended something meaningful in a way that created chaos, destabilization, and harm I cannot undo. When the furniture was gone and the apartment was empty, what remained was clarity. Not relief. Not blame. Responsibility. This is the moment my life detonated. It’s also where rebuilding actually began.
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January 2026, was a very transformative and interesting month. I walked 216 miles. Traveled two states. And took a “few” selfies.
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Today wasn’t about fixing anything — it was about feeling everything. I went offline and spent five hours in a grief lodge, moving anger, loss, and decades of trapped emotion through my body. What started as calm chanting turned into a powerful, collective release that cracked me wide open. I screamed, cried, and finally let my anger move for the first time in years. This wasn’t catharsis for show or insight for ego — it was grief, raw and embodied. I’m exhausted, sober, and deeply changed. Grief doesn’t just belong to death. It belongs to everything we lose. And I’m…
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Grief doesn’t disappear when you ignore it, it waits. Inspired by the way buffalo run straight into storms to get through them faster, this is a story about choosing to feel instead of numbing, crying instead of avoiding, and facing loss head-on. From a small, unexpected purchase to years of buried grief finally released, this is what it looks like to stop running away and start moving through.
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