#personal-journey

#personal-journey

I felt I owed it to myself to make an entrance in style.

I've been trying really hard to pay attention. I've just been tearing up the whole time and trying to stay focused, but I'm really good at suppressing my feelings."

I'm incredibly grateful to those who gave me that push. Few moments more perfectly capture that journey than standing at my own election count in the early hours of the morning, about to be interviewed, and hearing reports come in from around the country that we had hit our target and secured not only my seat, overturning a 28,000 Labour majority, making a total of four constituencies, along with an amazing 40 second-place results. We had absolutely smashed our previous records.

I needed to get out of my house, and museums were one of the few things that were open and doing a really good job at social distancing.

Rereading it now, as an adult, comparing it to what it meant to me when I was younger, I thought, oh God, I totally get this. This was giving me an excuse to be isolated and solitary and moody and to completely indulge in my senses.

At the end of 2021, I lost everything I had in an overnight fire at my home in Boulder, Colorado. Without my beloved cat or my condo, my life completely fell apart.

"I left LA for New York in 2011 with, as they say, a suitcase and a dream. My first apartment was teensy tiny, but despite the criminally small square footage, filling it with furniture felt mind-blowingly intimidating".

"I'll never forget the care they gave me at the Royal Free Hospital. I want to make the most of this second chance."

I immediately purchased a one-way plane ticket to stay with her and help with my 2-year-old nephew and newborn niece. Over the next two and a half years, I watched my once strong and bossy sister slowly become bedridden.

For a long time, I had an almost obsessive affection for philosophy... I believed I had to be a philosopher.

"I've seen a lot of comments of people asking how I lost the weight so my weight loss journey started once getting out of prison so when I started eating healthier instead of prison food, the weight begin to fall off."

"I always was training, training, training. And I thought I saw it as my way out. So I didn't put a lot of emphasis on my relationships..."