My friends, the time is here. At the end of May I will make a four day drive across the country as I move from Milwaukee WI to Phoenix, AZ. This life change is a huge test of faith as I leave my home town of 27 years to start a life with more opportunities. I'll be honest, I am scared.
I Never Would Have Moved Before
I used to live a very small life, underachieving and insecure about my worth. I was suicidal and hopeless for my youth and young adulthood. I hated myself so much that I turned to medical mutilation to try and become a different person.
I'm relieved to have survived and rescued myself, but the trauma left me with a lot of wounds to heal as I began my adult life. Many of these are developmental delays in areas of work history, financial independence, and career stability.
It took until 24 to feel confident enough to move out of the basement of my toxic family home. I lived in my Grandfather’s house for six months where, free of familial anxiety and learned helplessness, I taught myself to cook, organize, and be responsible, driving my grandfather to church every Saturday evening and using the time to grocery shop and meal plan.
When my narcissistic aunt interfered in my agreement with Grandpa and prematurely kicked me out, not caring what I had disclosed to her over a vulnerable dinner in weeks past about being away from my father (her brother), I had a meltdown. I would not live again in my parent’s house, not in the middle of trauma healing in weekly therapy and a childhood abuse support group.
Healing In My First Apartment
I asked a benevolent aunt for help getting my first apartment and she gave my mom and I a modest sum to obtain the cheapest rental I could find in Milwaukee. It was a 500 foot one bedroom in a forgotten suburb for $795 a month. I knew the landlady was a grandiose narcissist from the way she bragged about how rich she was off her many properties, how she would celebrate closing another day of deals with a bottle of fine wine as I signed my lease agreement, but I didn’t have a choice if I wanted to continue healing in solitude.
Four months later I finished my Bachelor of Arts and walked across the graduation stage with hundreds of other students. It took seven years to finish my degree while I both transitioned and detransitioned. I knew I was behind my same age peers, but I was finally done with school and could begin my real life.
The next two years I experimented with adulthood—the thing I never thought I’d live to contend with. I had no savings, scant work history, debt, and a jack of all trades lifestyle difficult to channel into regular work. I found a gig job as a high school substitute teacher, wrote here and there on Substack, and continued my healing work as life’s priority.
For six months I did weekly psychotherapy, rage and acceptance work, shamanism, neurofeedback, and tried supplements, birth control pills, and Zoloft for my trauma symptoms. Bouts of suicide ideation flared every menstrual cycle, I grieved my childhood abuse, medical abuse, and romantic abuse from being manipulated as the “side soul” to an emotional affair—my most recent traumatic episode.
The Phoenix Cycle
It was rough, lonely, and hopeless every other day, but I accepted my fate and knew the only way out was through. I developed The Phoenix Cycle—my buddhist philosophy of Life, Death, and Rebirth through the symbol of the phoenix who always rises from the ashes after burning to death. My stoicism brought solace when my nervous system was rampaging. Whenever I’m emotionally hijacked, I comfort myself with the wisdom of the cycle, remembering I am the phoenix.
Inspired to Move
In 2023 I began my crusade as a world-traveler, speaking at conferences, rallies, and press events on detransition. I sacrificed financial gain to do activist work knowing I’d be part of history. It was an honor to be cared for enough to receive invitations, make new friends all over the Western world, and share my inner work with crowds.
I was unable to substitute teach while I was away, and meager savings dwindled as I relied on donations from caring supporters. Things needed to change, as always. I began requiring professional speaker’s fees for my time, and seeking remote work to pay the bills. By September, I knew I had outgrown my home town and needed to escape as soon as possible. But where?
Deciding on the Southwest
After 26 years in Wisconsin, I was sure I never wanted to live in a cold or snowy climate again. I’d visited many warm places including California, Florida, Texas, and New Mexico which all were promising. One by one I researched and debated. California was too expensive—by far. Florida was a humidity shock. Texas was counter-cultural, but becoming woke and expensive.
New Mexico was a far away land of enchantment. It was warm, sunny, dry, and had a special energy. It was spiritual, and not in a cliche hippie way. I stayed in Albuquerque for a month, invited by my based grandma friend, Yvette. She was called to New Mexico from Florida as a teen and I stayed with her and her chickens and ducks.
In Albuquerque I loved the reds, browns, and turquoise landscape. The shops were littered with ornate indigenous pottery, crafts, and jewelry. My numerous LSD trips had given me a fondness for intricate patterns and Afro-Cuban design influence. The Southwest had an abundance of Aztec art, vibrant and alive. I had a good feeling about New Mexico when I decided to move, and thought about how I could live there.
Lonely Considerations
But as I packed my apartment and continued traveling to speak, I discovered more cities—Phoenix, San Diego, Modesto. These cities had more going on for the movement with freedom fighters organizing and socializing in the most intimate adventurous ways I’d missed in Milwaukee.
Within the six months of exploration and new neural pathways, I was also greeted by my dreaded developmental milestone—reproductive urges. With no prospects of even a single date, let alone marriage, love, or children, I struggled through initiation into my late twenties as a woman. I knew by 25 I’d probably encounter the grief of isolation in this way, and God—it was disgustingly painful to still be crying and healing from abuse instead of planning for matters most.
With a broken heart and resolution to have a family and better my community, I settled for adopting two kittens, Jazz, and Jordan. I longed to create a new household and rid myself of all ties to the past. Boxes stacked in my living room and barren walls closed in on me as I suffered through my regular flashbacks and researched moving with frustration. No rentals from Albuquerque was returning my calls or emails, I was tired of waiting in limbo to leave my past.
Why Phoenix Is Ideal
In April, 2024 I visited Phoenix again for a panel on the Turning Point USA film Identity Crisis. I was the primary character in the documentary, and I’d developed a relationship with the filmmakers as they recorded my life over six months in several locations while traveling. They were excited to show me their headquarters located in Phoenix.
Marcus, the director told me I should move to Phoenix instead of Albuquerque. I joked that he was biased, and that it would be unbearably hot in the summer, but a spark lit and I realized how he might be right. Phoenix had the same Southwestern aesthetic, landscape, and healing communities as New Mexico, but was more conservative and rooted in traditional values from Christianity.
There was a growing independent thinkers movement which I encountered at America Fest. 14000 people from varying political backgrounds swarmed the Phoenix Convention Center to praise liberty, truth, and God. The red, white, and blue aesthetics really aren’t so bad, I thought as I stared at a sea of flags. The crowd was like Christianity meeting anarchy—it was youthful, energetic, and impassioned.
A million levers churned and clicked in my brain thinking about the social possibilities. In Phoenix, I could have the weather, aesthetics, and spirituality I craved, and form a peer community with like minded values. It had everything I was missing—sunlight, real life relationships, and freedom. When miserably lying in a hotel room with the flu awaiting my panel, I made the decision that Phoenix would be my new home
Orchestrating Phoenix Rising
The easiest part of moving is my spiritual calling to live in the Southwest. The hardest part is my low-income freelance lifestyle that limits my budget and makes moving across the country extremely difficult. I call my move—including the road trip, financing, land eap of faith—Project Phoenix Rising.
I’m being reborn through Hell’s ashes as I pull the strings of destiny to maneuver this fantastic and terrifying life decision. In this moment I am doing something I never have before—trust the universe to provide for me—explicitly. There have been many times I’ve grumbled regrettably about having to “trust the universe or God” meaning it as a sarcastic complaint rather than a genuine belief. Even when I wanted to believe things would be alright I still resented life for being unfair.
But this time, I know I don’t have all my shit together. This move is a carefully planned mess and surely more things will go wrong. I’m poor, I’m alone, and I’m chancing it across the country like a biblical quest. Yet, I’ve been through enough phoenix cycles always coming out wiser, stronger, and more focused, to trust myself to succeed. I won’t have a lot of money when I get there, but money is coming, and I will have made the right decision even if it feels uncertain during the process.
Join the Pilgrimage
If you have ever enjoyed my writing and podcasts, or value my story, now is the time where I need your help the most. My moving costs are about $5000 which is as far as my budget will stretch. Anything you can give is vastly appreciated!