Oh, I dream often, and I do normally remember my dreams. And I feel like my relationship with them changes a lot.

Sometimes my dreams, like, give me time with people who I’ve lost in my life, and then I must wake up again and it feels like I’m losing them all over. Or sometimes if I think something in my life isn’t bothering me, my dreams will show me that it is something that’s like affecting me and affecting my thought process.

I had an interesting one during last night’s sleep with my childhood home. I was in my bedroom. And my bedroom is small, but in my dream, it seemed so big and like everything was so far away and it was really dark.

 It was a weird dream, to be honest.

The most pleasant dream that I remember having recently was with my mom.

She was just hugging me and wrapping me up in her arms and it’s like she was like letting me know that she was thinking about me and proud of my recent accomplishments. And she was letting me know that she’s okay because I worried about that a lot.

I think my biggest goal, like long term goal now is becoming a teacher, an art teacher, specifically. And I think my short-term goal now is establishing like healthy routines, time management, and movement of my body and like moving my body more.

Being able to travel constantly and visit different cultures and capture documents, with documentary photography and writing and telling the stories of people who might not have their stories told or just get overlooked. Or becoming super established in a place and building like a community and just taking care of like my community.

Whether that be having a nonprofit and being able to financially support people who might need financial support.

Yeah, but I would need to be super rich to do that.

The work on myself. I think to fill other people’s cup, you must, like, fill your own cup first and I think it’s taken me a long time to realize that I’ve always just wanted to, like, pour into so many different places instead of pouring into myself first. So, I’m just working on myself right now, working on things that fill me, which is photography, my creative side and going to school, which has been a goal of mine for almost a decade now.

Remember realizing that I’m not in survival mode anymore and realizing that I can, like, do creative things and I can, like, take a beat and work on myself.

Things aren’t weighing down on me. And I feel like I don’t have to be constantly fighting or constantly surviving.

I can just take a day and go on a walk or go to the farmer’s market and eat some organic fruits and vegetables. I have that freedom in my life right now.

Staying consistent.

Well, I absolutely love Santa Cruz. I think it’s a very special place and attracts a lot of special people. I’ve even heard a time or two that it’s safe for sex and that once you’re here, you can’t leave. And if you do leave, then you get called back to Santa Cruz. However, I feel like it’s Santa Cruz is in a transitional period now.

And I feel like as much as our community wants to be like a place for all people, we struggle with turning our backs on certain groups of people like the houseless community and other community members.

I feel like we could be more diverse, more immersive, and more of an actual community for all groups, for all people.

I love Santa Cruz. I love Santa Cruz, and I’m happy to be a community member and I’m happy to do the work and I’m happy to be immersed myself in the downtown community. I just feel like there’s still a lot of work to be done.