Growing up, I felt like I was floating through my life, unaware of who I was or what I believed in. Being raised Baptist Christian and Buddhist, queer, mixed race, and in poverty, I often felt confused, unseen, and pressured to be a different person for my community and each member of my family. Accepting myself just as I was never felt like an option and made isolation or avoidance seem easier. I moved from FL to CT when I was 12, and as I got older, I began to explore communities that centered/celebrated being different. I found my confidence, mood, and want to connect to others changed drastically during this chapter of my life. I felt alive for the first time and had a genuine want to explore the world and myself. My love for art, music, and dancing led me to study art and philosophy in college, and unbeknownst to me, I also developed tools to explore and understand the changes and stress I was experiencing. Making art and dancing gave me a language to speak to myself and show others my inner world. I felt connected to myself and something higher for the first time in my life. I quickly noticed how much stigma and judgment there was from others and the world around being an artist and began to open my eyes to all the other areas of my life that had similar biases and barriers. Unpacking and working through these led me to process and explore my trauma and created a desire to help others do this as well. This desire is what inspired my move from the East Coast to Seattle and was a catalyst in my pursuing a path that allowed me to assist others in healing through creativity, curiosity, education, and conversation. Change and exposure to queer culture for the first time gave me access/safety to explore my sexual identity and further explore the deepest parts of myself. I still experience confusion, pain, stress, feeling unseen, and pressure to change, and I still don’t know who I am. I also experience clarity, peace, pleasure, feeling seen, celebration for who I am, and love for myself. I have gratitude for all the dark I experience as much as the light. I have confidence that I will do the best I can and move with intention, care, and humility, and hope to help others write these things into their story as well.