Another Fresh Start

Cold Take: 2020 changed the world. In my corner of said world, it saw me match at my #1 ranked internship placement at UC Berkeley and subsequently move to the beautiful Bay Area, and also begin a (mostly) long distance polyamorous relationship, all of which I was quite public about as I made a New Year’s Resolution to make 1 (one) social media post per day that year. I’m willing to bet that the Venn Diagram of People Reading This and People Who Followed My Social Media In 2020 is a circle. Anyway, moving to California felt like ~Fresh Start~ for me. I remember thinking that I was on the cusp of completing my Five Year Plan at the time, and wanting to come up with a new one after graduation. I did, and it was very bare bones: get licensed, get a job, get some consistency. 5 years later, I’m 2 for 3. Guess which one the bipolar guy struggled with. So after the first big fresh start of my life, let’s see how many other fresh starts I’ve had. Spoiler alert: I’m writing this shortly after I’ve finished unpacking from a move to a new apartment.

Let me first set the stage. I moved from Tallahassee, Florida to a little city called Emeryville, sandwiched between Berkeley and Oakland on the west side of the East Bay, right on the water. It’s been heavily gentrified, displacing industrial working class jobs over time. The crime is relatively low (though I still got my windows smashed twice). I moved there halfway through 2020, during the peak of the George Floyd protests (and also COVID, in case you forgot), and I lived with two awesome roommates. I loved the location. The following were all within walking distance: dozens of restaurants, at least 3 bars, at least 2 coffee shops, a walk/bike path, 2 bus stops, a train station, a park, an explicitly antifascist art gallery, and A CAMERA STORE like what?? The commute to work was great, and many things, including hiking trails and botanical gardens were all within a reasonable driving radius. I loved living in Emeryville.

Eventually, 2021 comes around. I remember feeling relieved that I didn’t have to post every single day anymore. I was also looking forward to completing the 5 year plan set in grad school by graduating (it was a basic ass plan, okay). Prior to graduation, I had already known that I would be staying at Cal for my postdoc. Around a month before graduation, I was also making plans to have my long distance girlfriend move in with me. Not quite a fresh start, but a new chapter for sure, except OH NO it actually WAS a fresh start all along!! Two weeks after we discussed moving in together, and the weekend before my PhD graduation where I was returning to Florida for the ceremony, the vibe did a quick 180, and we were broken up before I walked the stage. Thank God the university let me edit my dissertation (read: delete a sappy paragraph dedicated to her) before it was published. I hardcore compartmentalized this so that I could focus on, uh, graduating with my PhD after a 10 year journey through Psychology (7 years in grad school) and celebrating with my friends and family. I will not be relitigating the breakup further, because the only point I’m making is that, after some healing, this was a Fresh Start in terms of dating.

Now, what’s come from this Fresh Start since then? In 5 years, there have been a handful of dates, a handful of friends, a handful of hookups, 1 (one) situationship (my fault for sure), and no formal relationships. It is what it is. To steal a term from a friend of mine, there have been plenty of vignettes, which speaks to the depth and specialness of each connection along the way.

2022 was the most volatile year of my life. The highs were high, and the lows were low, and there were plenty of each. Let’s start with the lows, in order: my car was broken into twice within 10 days; I experienced sexual trauma; I experienced a brief crisis where joblessness was a potential reality; my brother nearly died of an overdose; I got into a major car accident (if I was in the lane a split second sooner, I would’ve been t-boned on the driver’s side). Not great, to be honest. 0/10, would not recommend any of these.

*Reflecting on near-death experiences is a trip when you’re manic and questioning reality, but maybe that’s for a separate blog…*

There were also many good things to counterbalance all that other stuff. The big one was getting my clinical psychology license!! I also took multiple photography trips, including to Grand Teton and Mount Shasta. 2022, in general, was a very prolific photography year. I also got a job at the 2nd best private university in the world, which at the time was a lifesaver because I had gotten the news two days before that awful car accident, so I knew I was going to be okay. Altogether, there’s another Fresh Start here with a new job and a new car!

2023 was the closest I came to having consistency and stability. I had it for most of the year. This was the year I decided to move and get my own apartment, living without roommates for the first time ever. I decided on living in Foster City, because it was midway between my job and all my friends in the East Bay and SF. It was centrally located, right next to the San Mateo bridge. Other than that, there’s really not much to it. There was the occasional farmers market, there was a park within walking distance from my apartment, and PlayStation headquarters is casually right across the street from the Target. There’s also a Costco and a Safeway, so like, ya know, the basics were all there. Not very inspiring for photography though, and not nearly as walkable as Emeryville.

*Definitely the coolest shot I got from Foster City*

Foster City got the job done. It was meant to be balanced, and it was for as long as I had my job. Key word: had. As 2023 went on, the stressors began to mount, particularly around October (hmm, what else was going on in the world around then?). These stressors carried over into early 2024, when I eventually had my first manic episode. I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to talk about what all transpired with my job, but I think it’s safe to say that 5 months of administrative leave ended with me no longer at said job. The initial hospitalization felt like purgatory, and the leave period (filled with a couple months of treatment, and a few months of anxiously waiting for emails) felt like limbo. Following that, I was unemployed for 2 months, which is both a blessing that it was so short lived and a testament to the work I’ve put into building a respectable resume. I finished 2024 with the same company I’m still currently working for, and at the time, it was another Fresh Start.

The first half of 2025 was a struggle. I was reeling with depression after what happened with my previous job, which meant a lot to me (I viewed it as a lifesaver, after all, considering the timing with the car accident). The medication I was on at the time was too effective at slowing down my thoughts, to the point that it was dulling my personality and affecting my work. Thankfully, by the second half of the year, I was tapered off of my old meds and started on new meds, where the main caveat is that I needed to maintain a consistent diet and stay hydrated. The other big thing I needed to monitor was stress, which was easy enough to manage for the second half of 2025. Then 2026 happened…

I don’t think I need to say much about the global shit show that has been 2026. I’ve been relatively vocal on social media about my feelings, even going as far as having a public crash out about the war and the SCOTUS ruling, and that’s on top of the E-files and ICE raids. Needless to say, stress has been high, and these triggers, along with some personal life feelings of both intense love and limerence (with a splash of spiritual undertones) made for a cocktail that resulted in another manic psychotic episode, much to my displeasure, and despite taking my meds as instructed. This time around, my job was pretty chill about the whole thing and is in full support of me, but I harmed some relationships along the way, and for that, I’m ashamed, but that’s for me and my therapist to talk about.

Shortly after I got out of the hospital, I received an email from my apartment complex about lease renewal, and I knew that I wanted to move. Not because the apartment complex was bad or anything, I actually loved my cozy little spot, but because Foster City had run its course. It was no longer ‘centrally located’ for my needs, so I set my sights in back in the East Bay, specifically Emeryville. Now maybe I should be criticized for only looking at 1 (one) apartment complex before committing to live there, but this new place is basically perfect for my needs. It’s literally two blocks down the road from my previous apartment that I loved, it will altogether save me about $500 per month on rent, and it has all the same walkability mentioned before, except now my job is also within walking distance (that wasn’t planned though, I found that out later lol). So here’s to Emeryville, and here’s to yet another Fresh Start! Hopefully this one will stick. I’m happy to be back!

The Abandoned Project

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