“I’ve been waking up just as the sun rises lately, and it allows me to feel like I have a life outside of my daily commitments. This is when I can check in with myself.”

“But, like embracing the woman I am, I couldn’t stay back from the allure of the waves. The pull of my trans-ness and queerness, of course, would always be stronger, the strongest impulses I have ever known. The sea, like them, was a place that represented a kind of forbidden love. I needed to overcome my fears or I would feel that I was holding myself back from living authentically.”