About Me

Coming of age in Midwest suburbia in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I grew up in a working-class family striving to project a middle-class image. Behind closed doors,  addiction, control, and volatility shaped life in a fractured household.

I was the first and only out queer kid at my high school, navigating housing insecurity, bullying, and brushes with the law. A generous and welcoming lesbian community eventually offered safety and consistency that became a chosen family which carried me into adulthood.

Sexuality, however, was not the only truth I needed to face.

In my early twenties, I transitioned. I stepped into manhood, Corporate America, and back into the closet.

Living as a stealth trans man for the decades that followed, I chased the white-collar dream while numbing trauma I did not yet have the language for.  Under pressure to perform and carrying unnamed shame, lifestyle drinking became central to how I moved through the world.

Eventually, the way I was living became unsustainable. A “live fast, die young” mentality nearly became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A midlife reckoning marked the beginning of recovery, healing, and a renewed commitment to living with honesty.

From the Midwest to Manhattan boardrooms and barrooms, and eventually to the Pacific coast, my life has moved across geography and identity in search of safety, belonging, and a place to call home.

Now I write about what it means to come home to yourself after a lifetime of seeking and what it takes to stay grounded in an authentic sense of self. 

This lived experience shapes how I coach, grounded in truth and alignment.