CALL SECURITY, THERE'S A WOMAN IN THE WAREHOUSE

Dear you,

I’m writing this from an empty warehouse somewhere in Los Angeles, where the concrete floors hold every sound a little longer than they need to.

Captured by Mitchell Royel in the Fashion District, legally, and we're listening to "HAD ENOUGH" by TRFN. The energy of the scene mirrors the intensity of the music—bold, unapologetic, and charged with creative defiance.

A high-fashion rebel with old Hollywood edge, she stands in the warehouse like she owns the silence around her. Her blonde hair is styled in big, curly 1980s volume, framing piercing blue eyes and a thinner silhouette with effortless drama.

She wears a faded Ozzy shirt tucked into skinny jeans, giving the look a sharp mix of rock nostalgia and runway attitude. The styling feels raw but intentional: lived-in denim, bold hair, direct gaze, and that slightly undone Hollywood energy that makes her look both glamorous and untouchable. She gives off the impression of a girl in the middle of reinvention: confident, electric, and impossible to ignore.

There are racks of clothes nearby. Denim. Cotton. A jacket with shoulders that make me stand differently. Shoes lined up like tiny decisions. Someone left a coffee on a folding table, and the air smells like hairspray, dust, and the kind of possibility that only shows up when something else has ended.

I am playing dress up today.

Not in the light, easy way we did when we were girls, pulling dresses over our heads and becoming whoever we wanted before dinner. This is different. This is grown-up dress up. The kind you do after a breakup. The kind where each outfit asks a question before the camera ever does.

Who are you now?

What are you keeping?

What are you finally willing to take off?

And to be clear, this breakup was not with a man.

It was with a group. A whole orbit. Roughly 50 to 75 people, give or take, who once felt like part of the world I was building. People I laughed with, planned with, worked beside, trusted, performed for, softened around, dressed up for, and in some ways, shaped myself to stay close to.

But somewhere along the way, the rhythm changed.

Or maybe I did.

Maybe both.

What I know now is that we are no longer in sync with the same energetic frequency. And as delicate as that sounds, the truth of it has been anything but soft. It has felt like static. Like missed cues. Like trying to dance to music no one else can hear. Like standing in a crowded room and realizing the loneliest place to be is surrounded by people who only recognize the version of you they were comfortable with.

So now it is just me, myself, and I.

From scratch.

There is a particular kind of grief that comes when you outgrow a shared world.

It is not as clean as a romantic breakup. There is no one person to blame. No single text message to reread. No sweater left behind that smells like someone’s cologne. Instead, the loss is scattered everywhere.

It lives in group chats that stop feeling safe.
In rooms where your body starts to tense before your mind understands why.
In invitations you no longer want but still feel strange declining.
In the tiny ache of realizing you once belonged somewhere that no longer feels like home.

A breakup with a group can make you question your own reflection.

Was I too much?
Was I not enough?
Did I change?
Did they?
Did I imagine the connection?
Did I stay longer than I should have because being included felt better than being aligned?

These are not small questions. They sit in the body. They follow you into the shower, into your car, into the fitting room, into an empty warehouse in Los Angeles where someone is adjusting the light and you are trying to look like a woman who has not been quietly grieving an entire chapter.

But maybe that is what reinvention really looks like.

Not a perfect entrance.

Not a dramatic exit.

Just a woman standing under industrial windows, choosing herself in pieces.

Clothes are never just clothes when you are in transition.

A white tank can feel like a reset.
A pair of skinny jeans can feel like proof that you still have shape, still have edge, still have a body that belongs to you.
A vintage tee can feel like rebellion.
A red lip can feel like punctuation.

Today, as I move from one look to the next, I can feel different selves passing through me.

The girl who wanted to be liked.
The woman who wanted to be understood.
The performer who knew how to make everyone comfortable.
The dreamer who kept shrinking her vision so it would fit inside rooms that were already too small.

And then, somewhere between the second outfit and the third, I catch myself in the mirror.

Not styled. Not finished. Not fully healed.

Just present.

There is something sacred about seeing yourself before the final version arrives.

The pins are still in. The hair is only half-done. The makeup is close but not complete. The look has not landed yet. And still, there you are. Real. In progress. Unhidden.

That is the part of dress up we do not talk about enough. It is not always about pretending. Sometimes it is about practicing.

You practice standing in a new identity before you fully believe it belongs to you. You try on confidence before it becomes natural. You borrow boldness from a jacket, softness from a blouse, structure from a pair of jeans. You let the outside offer the inside a small suggestion.

Maybe this is who we are now.

Maybe this is who we were always becoming

The funny thing about old flames is that they do not always return as people.

Sometimes they return as feelings.

A song playing from someone’s speaker. A perfume in the air. A certain angle of light. A version of yourself you thought you had packed away. A memory of wanting something so badly that you mistook the wanting for love.

When you are playing dress up, when you are being photographed, when you are capturing the essence of reinvention, old flames tend to rise.

Not always romantic flames. Sometimes creative flames. Social flames. Ambition flames. Friendship flames. The spark you once felt around people who made you feel chosen. The charge of a room where you used to belong. The heat of being seen by people whose approval once felt like currency.

They come back because reinvention wakes up memory.

On an emotional level, transformation asks us to revisit the versions of ourselves we are leaving behind. The mind wants to make sense of the shift. It scans the past for proof, for warning signs, for meaning. It asks, “Who was I there?” and “Why did I stay?” and “What did I need from them that I am learning to give myself now?”

On a psychological level, our self-concept is built through repetition. We become used to certain roles: the helper, the pretty one, the easy one, the strong one, the fun one, the one who can take a joke, the one who always shows up, the one who never asks for too much.

So when we begin to change, the nervous system can mistake freedom for danger.

Even a beautiful new beginning can feel unfamiliar enough to scare us. The body may reach for the old pattern because at least the old pattern is known. This is why you can be standing in a gorgeous outfit, under perfect light, ready to step into a new chapter, and suddenly feel pulled backward by a memory of someone who did not even meet you well.

It is not because you want to go back.

It is because some part of you is checking to see whether you are truly safe to move forward.

I know some people hear the phrase “energetic frequency” and think it sounds too soft to be serious.

But I think we all know what it feels like when energy changes.

You feel it when the room gets quiet in the wrong way.
You feel it when laughter starts to require effort.
You feel it when your honesty becomes inconvenient.
You feel it when your growth makes people uncomfortable.
You feel it when your body begins to tell the truth before your mouth can.

Energetic misalignment is not always dramatic. Sometimes it is subtle. It can be a slow fading. A widening gap. A private knowing that your spirit no longer relaxes where it used to perform.

And when that happens with a whole group of people, the grief can be complicated.

Because you are not only losing them.

You are losing the version of yourself who knew how to survive there.

That is the part that hurts the most.

Not the absence of the crowd, exactly, but the end of the identity that formed inside it. The one who knew the rules. The one who could read the room. The one who understood where to stand, what to say, how much to reveal, and how much to hide.

Reinvention requires mourning that self, too.

Even if she was tired.

Even if she was pretending.

Even if she was ready to go.

There is a moment on set when the camera stops feeling like a machine and starts feeling like a mirror.

Not the kind that shows whether your hair is right or your jeans fit. A deeper kind. The kind that asks you to become honest in your face.

That is what image-making can do when it is done with intention. It can capture the tension between who you were and who you are becoming. It can hold the softness and the strength at the same time. It can make visible the private work of coming back to yourself.

Today, I am not dressing for a room of 50 to 75 people.

I am not dressing to be understood by the old circle.
I am not dressing to prove I am fine.
I am not dressing to make the ending look prettier than it was.

I am dressing to meet myself.

And that feels different.

There is no committee here now. No chorus. No emotional crowd I need to manage. Even if people are moving around the space, adjusting lights and checking details, the real work is happening quietly inside me.

Just me, myself, and I.

One part grieving.

One part remembering.

One part already gone.

I keep thinking about the phrase “from scratch.”

It sounds bare at first. Almost lonely. Like an empty kitchen counter. Like a blank page. Like a warehouse before the lights come on.

But from scratch does not mean from nothing.

It means from the original ingredients.

It means no shortcuts. No borrowed flavor. No pretending something is nourishing just because everyone else is eating it.

Starting from scratch means I get to ask what is actually mine.

My taste.
My rhythm.
My voice.
My pace.
My body.
My desire.
My definition of beauty.
My sense of peace.

It means I get to build without carrying the emotional furniture of people who are not coming with me.

And while that sounds empowering, it is also tender. Because even when a chapter ends for the right reasons, the heart still needs time to understand what the soul already knows.

That is why old flames flicker.

That is why memories surface.

That is why reinvention can feel both exciting and haunted.

We are not simply becoming new. We are releasing the emotional architecture that made the old self necessary.

So here I am.

In an empty warehouse somewhere in Los Angeles, playing dress up after a breakup that was not with a man, but with an entire frequency I can no longer live inside.

I am surrounded by clothes, light, and echoes.

I am learning that solitude is not the same as abandonment. Sometimes solitude is what happens when your life clears the room so you can hear yourself again.

I am learning that losing people is not always failure. Sometimes it is alignment doing its quiet, necessary work.

I am learning that style can be a ceremony. That a camera can be a witness. That getting dressed can be a way of saying, “I am still here, and I am allowed to change.”

Most of all, I am learning that the self we return to after a rupture is not the same self who entered it.

She is more discerning now.

Softer in the right places.

Less available for noise.

More loyal to the feeling in her chest that says yes, no, stay, go, this is not for you anymore.

And maybe that is the real essence of reinvention.

Not becoming unrecognizable.

Becoming unmistakably yourself.

With love,
Ryder, Mitchell Royel

SACRED CHAOS REBORN

Captured by Mitchell Royel in Moorpark, California.
Now playing: "#1 (feat. Nef The Pharaoh)" by Dev.
A moment held in light, where music meets the soul.

To the women who are still being asked to answer for a version of life that happened decades ago—

I see you.

I see the way your nervous system tightens when the old story resurfaces.
The way your breath catches before you respond.
The way your joy has to make room, suddenly, for seriousness.
The way your soft, beautiful day can be interrupted by someone else’s refusal to heal.

And still, you pause.

You choose your words carefully.
You measure the impact.
You tell the truth without throwing fire where fire is not needed.
You gather yourself before you speak, not because you are weak, but because you have earned your restraint.

That is power.

There are moments in a woman’s life when bliss is not silence, ease, or uninterrupted pleasure. Sometimes bliss is the deeper knowing that you do not have to abandon yourself just because someone else is offended by your existence, your memory, your growth, or your refusal to keep kneeling at the altar of the past.

Sometimes peace is not the absence of conflict.

Sometimes peace is the boundary you place around your own heart while conflict stands outside, knocking loudly.

You are allowed to be happy now.

Even if someone still wants an explanation.
Even if someone still wants a performance of remorse.
Even if someone still wants to keep the wound open because the wound has become their identity.
Even if the room gets tense when you choose dignity over defense.

You are allowed to have built a life beyond the scene of your old pain.

Let that land in your body.

You are allowed to have moved on.

Not because the past did not matter.
Not because harm should be denied.
Not because anyone’s feelings are irrelevant.

But because your life is not a courtroom where every season must be retried forever.

There is a holy difference between accountability and eternal punishment. There is a sacred difference between repair and captivity. And there is a profound difference between someone seeking truth and someone needing you to remain the person they decided you were twenty years ago.

You do not have to keep shrinking to make their narrative feel safe.

You can be compassionate without being consumed.

You can be accountable without being available for endless accusation.

You can speak with grace and still close the door.

You can issue the serious response, the necessary response, the grown-woman response—and then return to your tea, your prayer, your laughter, your music, your sunlight, your life.

This is emotional sovereignty.

It is the practice of staying with yourself when someone tries to pull you into the old storm. It is remembering that your spirit is not public property. It is knowing that your healing does not need to be approved by the people most invested in your pain.

And yes, it can feel unfair.

It can feel unfair to have done the work, to have softened, forgiven, grown, changed, grieved, learned, released—and still be met with the same old smoke from the same old fire.

It can feel unfair to have to be poised when you want to scream.

It can feel unfair to be expected to explain your humanity to people who have already made a religion out of misunderstanding you.

So let yourself feel that.

Let the grief move.
Let the anger tell the truth.
Let the exhaustion be honored.
Let the body say, “This is heavy.”

And then remember: heavy is not the same as permanent.

You are not here to be hardened by someone else’s bitterness. You are not here to live on call for every emotional emergency rooted in a chapter you have already survived. You are not here to prove your goodness to people committed to seeing you through the lens of their own unprocessed hurt.

You are here to become free.

Free does not mean careless.
Free does not mean cold.
Free does not mean untouched.

Free means you can respond without losing your center.

Free means you can tell the truth without bleeding all over the page.

Free means you can bless what was, name what happened, honor what was painful, and still refuse to hand over the keys to your present.

There is grace in this kind of restraint.

Not the sugary kind of grace that asks women to swallow their pain and smile. Not the performative kind that makes everyone else comfortable. I mean the fierce grace. The grace with a spine. The grace that says:

“I will not become cruel because this is painful.”
“I will not lie to keep the peace.”
“I will not abandon myself to manage your offense.”
“I will not let yesterday dictate the temperature of my soul today.”

That grace is not weakness.

That grace is mastery.

Some people may never let it go. That is a hard truth, but it can also be a doorway.

Because when you accept that some people may never release the story, you stop waiting for them to give you permission to live beyond it.

You stop chasing the perfect sentence that will finally make them understand.

You stop editing your joy so it does not offend their grief.

You stop confusing their fixation with your responsibility.

And slowly, breath by breath, you come home to yourself.

You remember the woman you are now.

The one who has survived the thing.
The one who has learned better ways.
The one who has buried old selves with tenderness.
The one who has made beauty out of aftermath.
The one who can be both soft and unmovable.

She is not defined by what happened decades ago.

She is defined by how she lives now.

By the love she gives.
By the truth she tells.
By the boundaries she keeps.
By the healing she chooses.
By the joy she protects.

So if you are in one of those moments—when bliss is interrupted and the past demands a formal reply—take your time.

Put your feet on the floor.

Place one hand over your heart.

Remember that urgency is not always truth. Noise is not always authority. Offense is not always wisdom.

Then respond from the deepest place you can access.

Not from panic.
Not from performance.
Not from the little girl who still wants everyone to know she meant well.
Not from the wounded part that wants to burn the whole bridge down.

Respond from the sovereign woman.

The woman who knows what happened.
The woman who knows what she has carried.
The woman who knows what she has healed.
The woman who knows she can be clear without being cruel.
The woman who knows peace is worth protecting.

Say what needs to be said.

No more. No less.

And then return to your life.

Return to your morning light.
Return to your body.
Return to your sacred work.
Return to the people who meet you in the present.
Return to the joy that is not denial, but devotion.

Because joy after pain is not disrespectful.

Joy after pain is resurrection.

And you, beloved, are allowed to rise.

-Ryder, Mitchell Royel

PERMISSION TO CHASE THE SUNSET

Captured by Mitchell Royel in Moorpark, California, where the hills held the last light like a secret and everything felt soft, cinematic, and almost gone. Inspired by the aesthetic of Sarah Feldhut and Brian Whalen — faded Americana, west-coast dusk, quiet glamour in the rearview, and the kind of romance that lingers long after the moment ends. Now playing: SUPERIMPOSE by ELIO.

I was young enough to think boredom meant something was wrong with the room, not with me.

Around my eighteenth birthday, I remember sitting in class, staring at the clock like it had personally offended me. The teacher was talking, everyone was taking notes, and I was somewhere else entirely. My body was in the chair, but my mind was already out the door, down the street, in some life that felt bigger than fluorescent lights and assigned reading.

I didn’t have the language for it then, but I was restless in my own skin.

I wanted something to happen. Not something small. Something that would shake me awake. I wanted wisdom, but I didn’t want it in the form of homework. I wanted freedom, but I didn’t know what I planned to do with it once I got it. I wanted to be seen as grown, even though part of me was still waiting for someone to tell me what came next.

And somewhere in that restless little season, I started to wonder if maybe the guys outside of school had more to teach me than the people inside it.

That sounds reckless now, but at the time it felt almost spiritual. Like maybe answers lived somewhere beyond the rules I had known. Maybe someone older, or different, or not tied to the same world I was in every day, could show me something I couldn’t see yet.

So when I met him, I was open in a way that was both beautiful and a little dangerous.

He seemed calm. That was the first thing I noticed. Not perfect, not magical, just steady. He asked questions like he actually cared about the answers. He listened without rushing to fill the silence. At eighteen, that felt like a rare kind of attention.

One day, we were talking about life, choices, and all the things I thought I was ready for. I was probably trying to sound more certain than I felt. He looked at me and said something about blind spots.

“Do you know what yours are?” he asked.

I laughed a little, because I didn’t know how else to respond.

“I don’t know,” I said.

He didn’t make me feel foolish for saying it. He just nodded.

“What do you think you keep choosing without realizing it?”

I looked away.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you think you’re looking for?”

That one stayed in the air longer.

I wanted to say love. I wanted to say freedom. I wanted to say proof that I mattered. But none of those words felt safe enough to hand over yet.

So I said it again.

“I don’t know.”

And maybe that was the most honest I had been in a while.

There was something tender about admitting that. I had spent so much energy trying to seem like I knew who I was, where I was going, what I wanted, what I could handle. But the truth was, I was guessing. I was reaching. I was young and curious and reckless in the way people are when they are desperate to meet themselves.

He didn’t shame me for not knowing. He didn’t demand that I perform confidence I didn’t have. In that moment, I felt the relief of not needing to pretend to be something I wasn’t.

No need to act wiser than I was.

No need to act healed.

No need to act grown just because I had turned eighteen.

There was grace in the pause. There was grace in the answer, “I don’t know.” Sometimes not knowing is the doorway. Sometimes it is the first honest prayer we speak without realizing we are praying.

Of course, long story short, it didn’t last.

Not in some dramatic, movie-ending way. There was no great betrayal, no grand heartbreak, no scene that changed the shape of my life overnight. Things stayed cordial. Respectful enough. A little underwhelming, if I’m being honest.

But I don’t look back at it with regret.

I look back and see a younger version of me trying to find a mirror. Trying to understand what she couldn’t name yet. Trying to learn where her blind spots were and what her longing was really asking for.

Maybe I looked for answers in a person who was never meant to become the answer. But even that taught me something.

There is nothing wrong with seeking answers from someone we trust. There is nothing wrong with asking questions, being unsure, or letting someone kind sit with us in the mystery for a while.

The lesson was never that I should have known better.

The lesson was that I was allowed not to know.

-Ryder

THE MATCH HE LIT AND LEFT BEHIND

He arrived like a cigarette I had no business craving.

Captured by Mitchell Royel in Moorpark, California. Now playing: “like a cigarette” by mxbeats, ken, dryftmode, suzi.

We followed the light first.

Not sunlight exactly—something dimmer, stranger, the kind of glow that slips between tree trunks and makes you believe the woods are trying to tell you a secret. We kept walking, shoes catching on roots, shoulders brushing pine and shadow, pretending we weren’t a little afraid of how far in we’d gone.

Every path started to look like a dare.

But there was something beautiful about being out there with no audience, no noise, no proof of anything except breath and instinct. Just the hush of the trees, the smell of earth, and that feeling that if you stayed still long enough, the forest might hand you back to yourself.

So we followed it deeper—the mystery, the music, each other.

And for a moment, it felt like the woods were following us too.

Not the first one. Not the reckless one stolen behind the school gym, all panic and perfume. More like the one you tell yourself you’ve outgrown. The one that appears in the hand of a beautiful stranger outside a dim restaurant, glowing at the tip, offering ceremony. A small flame. A reason to step away from the noise. A reason to inhale something dangerous and call it peace.

That was him.

A brief soothe. A burn dressed as blessing. A ritual I knew too well: the anticipation, the flick, the first pull, the lie that this was only for tonight. Only this once. Only because the moon was saying things and my body was listening.

When I saw him, something in me went quiet in the way a room goes quiet before glass breaks. Not peaceful. Charged. My nervous system put on lipstick. My intuition leaned forward. My common sense left her coat at the door and pretended she would be right back.

We talked like people who were standing at the edge of something and trying not to name it. There was warmth. There was voltage. There were little promises folded into casual sentences. The kind that don’t sound like vows, but land in the body as if they are. We’ll talk. I want to see you. We’ll connect again. That low, easy confidence men sometimes have when they are holding the match and you are already smoke.

So I texted him.

And then: nothing.

No response.

Just the blue-white silence of my phone. Just the tiny altar of the screen lighting up for everyone but him. Just me checking, then not checking, then checking with the false dignity of a woman pretending she has not organized her entire bloodstream around a notification.

His silence did not match the tone of our conversation. It did not match the softness in his eyes, or the way his attention had moved toward me like it had intention. It did not match the little door he opened and invited me to stand near. It did not match the promise implied by his voice.

And yes, I know. People get busy. Phones die. Lives are layered. Desire is not a contract. Chemistry is not a calendar invite. I am a grown woman with spiritual tools, self-respect, and a decent understanding of attachment theory.

Still.

The body keeps its own court.

My body said: objection.

My body said: we were told there would be warmth here.

My body said: why does this feel like withdrawal?

Because that is the thing about a cigarette. It is small, but it becomes an empire. It is momentary, but it installs a clock inside you. It gives you something to do with your hands when you don’t know where to put your longing. It makes absence feel like a craving and craving feel like proof.

Then he told me he was going out of town.

A simple sentence. Nothing cruel. No grand betrayal. No cinematic abandonment. Just logistics, apparently. He was leaving. He didn’t know exactly when we would see each other again. Or maybe he did and didn’t say. I didn’t know what he would be doing, who he would be with, what version of himself would exist in rooms I could not enter.

But he said we would connect again.

There it was. The ember.

Just enough.

Not a plan. Not a date. Not a hand on the heart. Just a future-shaped phrase. A little glowing tip in the dark. Enough to keep me reaching for the pack.

I wanted to be elegant about it. I wanted to be the woman who smiles with soft detachment and returns to her jasmine tea, her clean sheets, her sacred discipline. I wanted to say, Of course, love, travel well, and mean it from the crown chakra down.

Instead, I threw a tantrum in my bedroom.

Not the adorable kind. Not the cinematic kind with mascara and a silk robe and one perfect tear. A real tantrum. Private. Undignified. Primal. I paced. I flung myself onto the bed. I sat up again. I cursed into the air. I argued with no one and everyone. Him. God. My phone. My own stupid hope. My own beautiful, inconvenient heart.

I was furious at the gap between what was said and what was happening.

I was furious that I could be so affected by someone so new.

I was furious that desire had found the loose floorboard in me and was now prying it open with both hands.

I hyperfocused until the room became a tunnel. The walls softened and sharpened. My thoughts began circling the same small flame: What did he mean? Why didn’t he answer? When will he come back? Is he thinking of me? Did I invent it? Did I feel it alone? Was I too much? Was he not enough? Is this intuition or obsession wearing perfume?

Then I stood in front of the mirror.

There I was.

Wild-eyed. Tender. Annoyed with my own tenderness. Hair slightly tragic. Face flushed with the humiliation of wanting. I looked like a woman who had been visited by a god and then left on read by a man.

And I stared.

Not the quick glance we give ourselves before leaving the house. Not the evaluation scan. This was witnessing. This was the long, merciless, merciful look. The kind where the soul finally stops making noise and tells the truth.

I saw the longing first. Then the fear underneath it. Then the devotion underneath that.

And then the realization landed with a thud so clean it almost became holy:

I was hopelessly in love.

Not reasonably interested. Not lightly intrigued. Not enjoying the flirtation. Not “seeing where it goes,” that modern little anesthesia.

Hopelessly.

Meaning my hope had already run ahead of me barefoot. Meaning my heart had lit the candle before the church was built. Meaning some part of me had decided, without my consent, that this man was not just a man. He was a doorway. A weather system. A cigarette after years of clean lungs. A burn I had mistaken for warmth.

And because I love myself now, because I have earned some wisdom through gorgeous mistakes and expensive healing, I knew this was not a situation to romanticize without supervision.

This would need crisis management.

Not suppression. Not shame. Not pretending I was above it. Crisis management with candles and boundaries. With water. With prayer. With friends who tell the truth. With nervous system care. With not texting again just to prove I am casual when I am absolutely not casual. With remembering that intensity is not always intimacy. With asking myself what part of me is starving and why a small plume of attention feels like a feast.

I would need to manage the fantasy like fire.

I would need to keep my hands away from the lighter.

I would need to let the ache after the burn teach me something other than how to crave more.

Because the cigarette is not evil. It is honest in its way. It says: I will calm you for a minute and cost you later. It says: I will give your longing a shape, but I will not make you whole. It says: you can turn me into a ritual, but I will still leave smoke in your hair.

And maybe he will come back. Maybe we will connect again. Maybe he will walk into my life with his beautiful timing and his impossible mouth and his half-made plans, and I will feel that familiar strike of the match.

But now I know.

The glow is not the same as devotion.

The burn is not the same as warmth.

The craving is not the same as love, even when love is inside it.

So I am here, in my bedroom, in the aftermath of my own little storm, practicing the sacred art of not abandoning myself just because someone else has gone quiet. I am letting the wanting move through without letting it drive. I am holding the part of me that fell so fast, so fully, and I am not mocking her for it.

She is not weak.

She is alive.

She is just learning, again, that some flames are meant to be admired from a distance. Some are meant to be prayed over. Some are meant to be walked away from before the whole house smells like smoke.

-Ryder

WE'RE NOT DOING IT WRONG, WE'RE DOING IT HUMAN

Here’s what nobody tells you about the in-between: it’s where you actually find yourself.

Captured by Mitchell Royel in the fashion district. Vibes are immaculate. We're listening to Your Song by Rita Ora on repeat—that track still hits different every time. Pure energy.

We’ve been living in this liminal space—you know the one. Where we’re not quite together, not quite apart. Where “friends with benefits” becomes code for “we’re terrified to name what this is.” Where every makeup feels like a small resurrection and every breakup feels like we’re learning to breathe underwater.

And we’re done apologizing for it.

Frequency of Transition

There’s this thing that happens when we’re in the thick of transformation. The world gets loud. Everyone has an opinion about what we should do, who we should be, how we should heal. But lately, we’ve been learning to tune into a different frequency entirely.

We only want to hear the songs that make us feel alive.

Not the sad ones. Not the bitter ones. Not the “I told you so” anthems from well-meaning friends who think they know our story better than we do. We’re talking about the songs that remind us that even in the mess—especially in the mess—we’re still capable of feeling everything.

On Makeups+the Art of Returning

We’ve broken up three times. Maybe four, if you count that week in March where we “took space” but still texted at 2 AM.

Each time we come back together, people ask us why. Like we owe them an explanation. Like love is supposed to be linear. Like growth doesn’t sometimes look like circling back to see if we’ve both changed enough to try again.

Here’s our truth: Sometimes the person who breaks your heart is also the person who teaches you how big your heart actually is.

And sometimes? We’re not ready the first time. Or the second. Sometimes we need to leave and come back and leave again before we understand what we’re actually choosing.

Flow State of Feeling

We’ve been leaning hard into hyperfocus lately. When everything in our relationship status feels uncertain, there’s something sacred about finding the things that make us forget time exists.

For us, it’s been:

• Writing at 3 AM when the words pour out like confession

• Running until our thoughts quiet down to just breath and pavement

• Creating things with our hands—pottery, paintings, playlists that tell the story we can’t speak out loud yet

This is where we’ve learned the difference between distraction and devotion. Distraction numbs you. Devotion wakes you up.

In flow state, we’re not running from the complexity of us. We’re running toward the fullest version of ourselves. The ones who can hold paradox. The ones who don’t need everything to be resolved to know we’re whole.

Friends with Benefits+
the Lies We Tell Ourselves

Let’s be honest about what “friends with benefits” really means:

It means we’re brave enough to stay close but too scared to go all in.

It means we’re practicing intimacy with training wheels on.

It means we’re both hoping the other person will be the first to admit they want more.

We’re not judging it. We’ve lived it. We’re in it. But we’re also not pretending it’s casual when our hearts do backflips every time we see each other’s names light up our phones.

The benefit isn’t the physical part. The benefit is getting to keep each other in our lives while we figure out if we’re strong enough to risk losing this by wanting everything.

This Transitional Season

Spring is doing that thing where it can’t decide if it’s still winter. That’s us right now.

And we’re learning to be okay with not knowing. With the fact that some seasons are just about transition—not destination. Some chapters are just about becoming—not arriving.

We used to think we needed to have it all figured out. The relationship status. The five-year plan. The clear narrative that makes sense to everyone watching from the outside.

But now? We only want to sing the songs that feel true right now. Even if they’re messy. Even if they’re complicated. Even if they change tomorrow.

What We Know for Sure

We’ve changed the frequency we operate on. Before this, we were all minor keys and melancholy. Now, even in the uncertainty, even in the back-and-forth, even in the “what are we doing?”—we feel alive.

That’s not nothing.

That’s not casual.

That’s not something we’re willing to diminish just because it doesn’t fit into neat categories.

So here’s our open letter to anyone else living in the in-between:

Your transitional season is not a failure. It’s a composition.

The breakups taught us what we won’t tolerate. The makeups taught us what we can’t live without. The friends-with-benefits phase taught us that intimacy is complicated and that’s okay. The hyperfocus taught us that we’re whole even when our relationship status isn’t.

And all of it—every messy, beautiful, confusing moment—is writing the song only we can sing.

We’re choosing to sing it loud.

Even if we don’t know how it ends yet.

With love and zero apologies,
Ryder

P.S. — If you’re waiting for permission to feel everything while you figure it out: this is it. Feel it all. You’re not doing it wrong. You’re doing it human.