A little less lost, and maybe more fabulous

I may have been supporting my friend this past summer when I went to a boudoir open house for which she was managing the PR, but I can't pin the blame on her this time. Maybe the wheels started turning when another client I met at the open house talked to me about how her sessions in front of the camera were more effective than any of the hundreds she'd spent on therapy. I came to understand that, as utterly absurd as it sounds even to me, a boudoir session was something I needed.

My life flipped on its head these past couple of years. Even before the chaos of fostering and fertility treatments, over the past decade I‘ve spent a lot of time carefully flying under the radar, conforming and avoiding attention, and making some compromises that really hurt. In the midst of it all, I lost the mental model of myself that my photographer teased out: someone strong, beautiful on my own terms - without having to apologize for the lack of hourglass figure or feminine curves - and most importantly, joyful in my weird, wonderful skin.

This is me, who I want to be and who I am.

Looking at these photos makes me feel a little more brave. Even if the person that exists in my head can’t (yet) do something, surely that badass casually wrapped around her pole could. And oh, right, that's me! I’m hoping seeing myself from the photographer's angle takes me one step closer to reclaiming my sense of self and feeling a little less lost - and perhaps as fabulous as I deserve to feel.

A year of giving running a shot

Today was the 2025 Berkeley Half Marathon, the same race last year that kicked off my foray into running a year ago. At the time, I'd registered for the 2024 5k thinking it'd be a forcing function to lock myself out of any more IVF cycles despite the bad news from the 4th one, which we'd hoped would be our last. It didn't hold me back, and thank goodness for that, as the final three IVF cycles proved way more fruitful than the first four. I'd paid the race fee, so I showed up just a few days after my sixth of seven egg retrievals and did my best little jog, trying all I could to hold my pelvis steady as I most definitely wasn't medically cleared to be running. I finished respectably, 10th in my age range with an 8:40 mile pace. It was enough to light a fire in me.

January of this year came around and I was clear to use my body however I wished after a whole year of holding back. Despite being an avowed non-runner (track and field having left me heartbroken), I decided 2025 was the year to give it a shot. I locked myself in to a handful of 5k's scattered across the year, this being the last of them.

In the interim, I think we figured out if running might be for me. To the extent that I was still holding onto any 5k-related goals, I thought it'd be pretty fabulous to be able to run a sub-8-minute-mile pace without hating myself, that last part being the critical piece. Running can't be for me if it isn't a happy space. I don't need another round of chronic injuries and heartbreak. And today I reached that goal. I love the finish time, but I love my expression as I crossed the finish line even more.

Berkeley Half Marathon 5k!

It doesn't feel like I should be allowed to say the year I lost my grandpa and my beloved cat was a good one. But I'm not going to lie, I shed a couple happy tears on the bike ride home from today's race. This year has been a long time coming.

No good words

Sometimes there are no good words to convey a loss, to honor a life, and to acknowledge the passing from one stage to the next. For so long now, I've lived life with Chat by my side. From the first few months of grad school through all the messy relationships, the career and soul searching, the marriage, the moves, the forced separation under Trump 1.0, the often choppy waters of Neuralink, our first parenting experience, the many IVF cycles, and the recovery year that followed. Chat was a part of it all, and always had something to say. On Saturday, she told us her last thing: that it was time to say goodbye. She didn't go down without a fight with the vet, of course, but it took every last ounce that was in her. I thanked her for putting up with me all these years despite all my many fuck-ups, for which she was never shy in critiquing. 

There's no one left to sleep atop my head, no one to keep Mars and Lily in their place, no one to ensure Nicolas and I are definitely not allowed to cuddle at night. Sometimes there are people in life who are uniquely special, the kind you know you don't get two of on this journey. Chat was one of those: there won't ever be another cat so fiercely dedicated to me. So I know, don't cry because she's gone, smile because you had the privilege of sharing so much life with her. Still, the tears don't stop so easily.

I love that I work in a place where I could share the pain of the loss and the privilege of the time we'd spent together, where I've got a team of animal lovers who get it and who care enough to share a bit of the burden. Getting to be surrounded by these sorts of folks makes my heart a little less heavy.