LiveJournal.com/sullen_gal

A Short Essay

Nearly 2,000 miles between me and the person I used to be. 1,902 miles to be exact. 

On a day where the sky couldn’t decide to rain steadily or surrender to the sun. Moments of pure cool breeze on a sunny island to a gloomy "Twilight-esque" type of weather the deeper I drove into the mountains. 

Driving in a small red Fiat 500 with a soft top, I took advantage of the clear skies and rolled the convertible top down to let the breeze comb through my hair. While José González played on my "Olympic Drive" playlist, I would pull over to take a photo of something that I don't think people will ever understand the true beauty unless they were there themselves. 

By the time I made it to Ruby Beach after Hoh Rainforest, it was around 5 pm and the sun miraculously shone brightly as I parked the car, I thanked God for the light, whoever that might be to you, and I knew I was in the right place at the right time. I had originally planned to drive back up to Hoh the following day to visit the beach for the shoot but last minute decided to do it that same day and I am glad I did. The park ranger told me that the beach would be closed the next day. Was this luck? 

This is it...all or nothing. 

So I packed up my gear after frantically throwing on bright blues and silver eye makeup with tiny gold glitter stars up and down my arms. I walked down to the beach which was a slight trek and on the way down almost forgot how silly I must have looked with such intense makeup when I would catch glimpses from strangers as they passed me. But nevertheless, I wasn't there for them, I was there for me. 

Ruby Beach... wow.

Beautiful is not the word. It isn't enough. It's something much greater than that.

I've been to beautiful places. I've seen breathtaking sights. But this one has taken the cake so far.

Maybe because it wasn't a disappointment. Maybe because it lived up to everything I had read about. Maybe because photos and videos don't do it justice.

It's more than something you see.

It's a feeling.

It's the smell of salt in the air and damp earth beneath your feet. It's the sound of waves crashing against ancient sea stacks. It's driftwood scattered across the shoreline like forgotten monuments. It's standing there, surrounded by something so vast and untamed that, for a moment, your own worries seem insignificant.

It's a memory that doesn't stay in a photograph.

It's a forever memory, safely stored in my mind.

As I took in the moments, I noticed the weather starting to shift and I felt the push of "NOW" and there, I threw on a large white tulle skirt with an extra long tulle hooded cape that I tucked into the waistband. I stripped down and I took the white beaded chest piece and intentionally wore it backwards; I then took off my shoes and socks, with a set of delicate gold anklets with small pearls on my right leg and walked onto the beach. My gimbal set on some rocks held onto my phone and filmed while I tried to figure out the angle for the shot. My remote wasn't working well with the distance on my Canon but nevermind how...I made it work. I shot at 28mm with an f-stop of 3.5 so the landscape could hold its presence behind me. The giant sea stacks, which stood everywhere along the shoreline like broken pieces of land stubbornly refusing to be taken by the ocean, continued to push back every few seconds.

And there it was...a steady stream of continuous shots of the same angle...somewhat the same poses, slightly changed, sometimes looking back at the camera, mostly looking away...feeling the sand in my toes, fingers and the sea salt damping my hair.

Over 19 years ago I started a LiveJournal under the name: Sullen_gal

From there I would write journal entries, some public, some private.

I was going through a really difficult time in managing my emotions in a small house that I shared with a very loud and sometimes dominant personalities. I felt very much alone at times and found a lot of solace in hanging out with terrible people that I assumed were friends. 

I put too much trust in others because I didn't trust myself. I was drinking far too much. I would occasionally drink to the point of forgetting what I did the night before. I was drinking to suppress pain, guilt and the constant reminder that I was failing at everything. What drove me through this spiral was a horrible relationship that went south very fast and it unfortunately wrecked me and ripped my heart into a million pieces. This person traumatized me so bad that I resorted to drinking and putting myself in danger at every moment. I was careless after that. And then one day, at a party with people I knew, I only drank 2 shots of tequila and completely blacked out at 2 in the afternoon. I don't remember much and I have reason to believe it was laced. 

My mind is constantly trying to fill the void with answers. And I developed discernment then and it makes sense.

When I woke up in a bed I could hardly make sense of anything, feel or even see, I started to slowly understand what was happening. I couldn't even speak and later that night when everyone was gone and my mind was racing, catching up to what had happened, I walked barefoot through the alley ways back to my house. I remember some pain on my feet and legs, the next morning I realized I stepped right into a cacti patch. 

I was just so focused on going home that it didn't matter. 

I died that day.

I secluded myself the next weeks and didn't speak to anyone else. I stayed in bed feeling the worst I had ever felt in my life. Worse than the heartbreak that initially drove me to hate myself. Further screwing in the pain and scrubbing away any self confidence that I had before. I never spoke to any of those people again.

I think it was the last time I ever wrote in my LiveJournal.

A couple years ago I happily went to the store to grab items to cook dinner for my small little family. As I was walking away from my parked car, I saw him walk out of the store.

My body froze before I could even think. I didn’t know what to do. I just stopped. It was like my body reacted before my mind had time to catch up.

A response from the autonomic nervous system.

And in that moment, I realized I was the rabbit.

Not because I wanted to be afraid. Not because I was weak. But because something in me recognized danger before I could name it.

Like a small animal caught in an open field, aware that somewhere nearby there was a hunter.

I hid and ducked behind a car feeling my blood pump hard through my body and my heart pounded and rung in my ears. I felt dizzy and scared. I crawled back to my car and sat there and started to hyperventilate. No sound would escape my mouth...I just kept trying to catch my breath as I felt like I was going to die. And then it finally came out...a cry, a sign of life, a yelp of painful emotion from memories that I thought I had forgotten. I sat there and cried for half an hour, shaking from the fear I had just felt. 

When the tears started to break, I forced myself to bottle it all up and told myself to do what I said I would do. I got out to get groceries to make dinner for my family. 

Why do people, especially women do this? Pretend everything is okay? The older I have gotten and the more comfortable I have been about expressing my emotions, feelings, thoughts and concerns, boundaries, intentions and expectations, the more I realize how much better I feel. I had developed this facade that I just know everything and I constantly get the comments of "you have your shit together" from multiple people over and over again but I am here to tell you that I wish I did. And when people put me onto that pedestal, I feel like I have to reach that height every single time, even when I am too tired.

This plan and idea for this image has been over a year of trying to figure it out, trying to make sense of how, why, when and what will it look like when I do do it? Share it? Write about it? Open up to others that this secret is no longer my secret. It's no longer eating at me. 

I don't expect anything from sharing other than the hope that this image simply speaks for itself. 

Why is it called Sullen Girl?

Sullen Girl is a song written and performed by Fiona Apple on her Tidal album. She was 14 when she wrote it. This is a song that I had always loved and for a little moment, I resonated to it in a different way than what she meant but I still felt the beauty in it's sadness. Afterwards, the way I related to it changed to its true meaning and I felt sick to the stomach, sad, anxious, hurt and every other negative emotion you could think of all rolled up into one. It was like listening to it for the first time. 

"...But they don't know that I used to sail the deep and tranquil sea. 

But he washed me ashore and he took my pearl

And left an empty shell of me..."

But even though it is so sad and it brings me to tears every time I hear it, I now sometimes sing along. It has allowed me to put things into words, because for 19 years I didn't and I couldn't. And I felt deep shame and guilt like it was my fault and that I had deserved it. That I put myself into that situation and therefore should have known.

For so many years I struggled with identifying it and though it wasn’t extremely violent like how sadly others have experienced, I almost felt unworthy to even call it that and sometimes felt like I shouldn’t feel the way I did.  Why? Why would I feel this way? Because media labels it a certain way? That it’s only supposed to look like this or like that?  Where can we change this? Inform others how it can look like?

And then you get women and men, who speak up years later because it later becomes clear to them that “Hey, what I experienced is called, sexual assault.  That was rape.  I didn’t consent.  I didn’t know. I couldn’t speak.  I couldn’t say no. “

After that day when I saw the man that raped me, I had some courage weeks later to look him up on Facebook.  There he was, married, with a family, with daughters and the scariest thing out of it all, he was a cop.

There’s a lot of reasons why I have distanced myself from others, people, family and friends…mostly family and it’s because I don’t want to remain here in this city.

There are moments in my life where I wish I could go back in time and do what I wanted to do.  No longer kept on this short leash where my options were either go to a small community college and become someone that I may not like and or get married young and have children right away.  Staying in the never-ending loop of poverty and unconventional standard of life that I was not comfortable allowing myself to live with. 

I have been asked by more than several people why I have decided to pursue my Ph.D. and the simplest answer is basically because I can and I want to. 

I don’t need anyone’s approval other than my own.  I have decided to set my own standards for the sake of my daughter.  I want to show her that if I can, then anyone could. 

Nothing can break me if I’ve already been broken.  Words don’t hurt me anymore like they used to.  Can I react to them? To how someone looks at me or treats me? Absolutely, the key difference now is that I no longer let it run or ruin me. I’m no longer scared to say what I need to say.  To stick up for myself.  I’m no longer the 19-year-old girl that was scared and lonely to speak or ask for help.  I’m a grown woman who knows exactly who she is. 

This is part of the reason I have fallen in love with the pole community as well.  As a poler and pole instructor, I have been able to lead by example of loving myself, my body and owning who I am, inside and out.  Wearing what I want, dancing how I want and feeling how I want…I can post and show who I want and when because bodily autonomy is powerful. And yes, the unwanted attention I sometimes get, I delete and block and carry on.  I have found a way to reclaim my energy, my mind and my body in a safe space, in a safe way.

I’ve been told I’m a little blunt.  I’m just real.  No bullshit.  And this is what my work is about.  I’m not hiding behind curated Instagram photos.  Not the Instagram model…not the influencer…not the trendy young girl with men on her page leaving comments about her looks and or body.  I’m more than that.  I’m human. I dance.  I take photographs of others, sometimes it’s boudoir, its weddings, it’s families and sometimes it’s me.  Sometimes I share too much like a video of me crying, a story of a bad day and that’s okay.  I’m only showing you that it’s ok to not be okay. 

And so this project is very personal to me and it’s a turning point in my photography…my art. It’s not just a photograph.  It’s a feeling and it’s raw. I’m allowing you to see more of me that only a couple people knew. 

I traveled nearly 2,000 miles to take one photograph, but I left with so much more. There are now 1,902 miles between me and the girl who started a LiveJournal called Sullen_gal. And for the first time in a very long time, I think that's far enough.