Oakland, CA

October 19, 2024

In all the places I’ve lived, I finally feel like parts of myself has awakened since living here. The beauty it holds has shed a light on my shadows.

When you lived in so many places, you don’t really know where or what to call home. At 27 years old, I’ve lived in 11 different cities and towns. I’ve attended 3 elementary schools, 2 middle schools, and 4 high schools. I refuse to think about how many different houses I’ve lived in but let’s just say it’s well over 10 houses in my whole entire lifetime on this planet.  Since forever, I’ve yearned to lay my roots down and finally call a place home.

Whenever I think back to the young times my brother and I were told that we were moving yet again, I became more and more numb to the feeling of having to pack up my things. But I remember one move in particular the most, and not because we were moving across the state - but because I found out from a friend at one of my middle school’s back to school night. Up until this point, the anxiety of having to pack up again started to ease. We were at this house for a good of amount of time (4 years), I established my friends from elementary school and even joined them into the 7th grade at our neighboring middle school. It felt like I was packing up for the very first time ever, again. As each year passed after that, I noticed I just sort of accepted the fact that this was a normal thing - even though I knew that not every single kid in my grade was having to go through this, I just accepted that this was part of my life.

After about a year adjusting to the move, I finally found the groove and started to excel in school again. Then of course, we were driven out of our house. I was a first-semester sophomore in high school at this time and transferred to another district. This is when everything started to go downhill for me academically. I naturally started to rebel, failing classes, finding every excuse not to go to school, and when I finally learned how to drive, I took every chance to ditch almost every single day. I just didn’t want to have to redo all this over again, especially in high school. With a couple of night classes, now on my fourth high school, and a full 0-7th period schedule senior year, I barely graduated. A big chunk of my adult life, all my personal items and documents lived in plastic box from Target and was basically couch surfing between my friends’ spots. (thank you from the bottom of my heart, you know who you all are).

Fast forward to now, here I am writing this in my 1 bedroom apartment in Oakland, CA on my 3rd year here. 2 years of that being by myself and now with my lovely partner.

The first time I found myself in Oakland, I went to a City and Colour concert at the Fox Theatre and walked back to my two smashed windows on my mini-van. If that doesn’t scream a welcome to Oakland, I don’t know what else would LOL. Honestly it was my fault though, and if you live anywhere here in the Bay Area, you know not to be a dumbass and leave stuff in your car! But, I remember coming back and having my first ever First Friday experience back in 2017, walking down Telegraph Ave with all the local food trucks, art vendors, and street performers, I wanted to come back and explore more.The last time few times I visited Oakland before becoming a resident, I went to my very first Queer block party and then found myself driving across the bridge from SF to spend a couple hours at the Lake just to read or enjoy the sun.

I think there’s a mutual and deep understanding of the complexities that comes with living here in Oakland but it’s still very unfortunate how media portrays it. What you don’t see is the communities that exist here that choose to show up for every part of it.

As I continue to lay roots down here in Oakland and reflect on all the places I’ve lived, I wonder if this is where I’ll eventually be call home.

More pictures are available are on my portfolio.