I made a book. It’s not perfect (I think the dimensions are too big), but I like it. It’s a collection of photos and writing I created between June 2010 and August 2011. It was a very tumultuous, beautiful, difficult, humbling and profoundly amazing time for me.

The book covers a very distinct chapter of my life. A period when every aspect of my life was up in the air. I accepted some of my weaknesses and made some significant changes to how I live these precious few moments of time I will be here.

Maybe that sounds a bit melancholy. But that is what motivates me. That is how I motivate myself. My time is precious because, by nature’s standards, it will be short. How short? I don’t know. I think 80-90 years sounds about right. But no one knows for sure. Everything is a river. Time is just flowing by. What am I doing to make the most of it? I don’t always know, but I’ve tried to stop letting fear or "the way you are supposed to do things" get in the way.

In the past year, I became a more solid person. Solidly grounded and focused on how I can surround myself with people I love and meaningful experiences. I've also become more at peace with the person I am: sometimes gregarious and silly and sometimes quiet and introspective. Making that peace was a journey that at times broke me into little pieces. I’ve collected some of those pieces as well as the mementos from that journey in this book.

Let me be clear: I didn’t solve any existentialist dilemmas in my little book of corny poems and sunset photos. I simply used a couple of different forms of art (writing and photography) to document the thought processes by which I learned a little bit more about myself.

Maybe there is something in this book you can relate to. That would be incredibly humbling and neat for me. If there isn’t? That’s ok too. Either way, thank you for taking a look.

You don't have to buy it to see it. You can flip through it on Blurb.com