I woke up anxious and didn’t run. I faced anxiety and didn’t spiral. Thirty-seven days sober in the hardest season of my life, I chose movement over meltdown and discipline over drama. This dance isn’t performance. It’s proof. Identity death cracked me open, and what came back is steadier, sharper, and done selling out.
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 fucking bird from my old patterns.
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…