About Me and My Blog
Hello and welcome to my first blog post! The idea of starting a blog has been a dream of mine for a couple years now—a dream that I’ve spent way too much time overthinking, doubting, and worrying about what others will think. I finally came to the conclusion to just say fuck all that! I would regret it so much more if I never gave myself the opportunity to just go for it and see where it takes me than if I were to go on with my life never having the courage to take the leap. So, here’s to taking the leap! With all that said let me tell you a bit about myself and what I want this blog to be all about.
Who Am I?
My name is Kristen Rapin, I’m 28 years old, and I’m originally from Northern California but currently living in Northern Michigan.
I graduated with my degree in psychology a few years back and am obsessed with everything about the human mind—specifically dreams, archetypes, intuition, and all of Carl Jung’s philosophies. Psychology will always be a passion of mine that I never want to stop learning about.
I’m an enormous animal lover and can’t remember a time in my life where I haven’t had a pet, at least not for very long. I love myself a big floofy dog, but I’ve come to realize that cats are my one true love. I have a cat named Taco and she is the absolute cutest thing on the planet and the love of my life.
Photography has always been a passion of mine. My dad introduced me to the art when I was young, and I’ve been in love with it ever since. I was lucky enough to take a photography class in high school where we developed our own film in a darkroom just before they switched over to teaching everything in digital. I will still argue that nothing compares to photos taken on black and white Ilford 100 film.
There isn’t a single fruit I’ve tasted that I haven’t liked. A fantasy of mine is sitting on a warm sunny beach surrounded by a spread of fresh mangoes, pineapples, strawberries, peaches, and well you get the point. I really freaking love fruit.
My dream is to travel to as many places as I can and have many experiences in this life that will help me to learn, grow, heal and evolve. I believe that is the reason we are all here on this earth and I don’t want to just let this opportunity I’ve been given pass me by.
I really love movies, going to the movies specifically, especially by myself. There’s just something about going to an independent theatre and seeing a movie you’re super excited about and getting a bag of popcorn all for yourself and a box of junior mints. I tend to be drawn to the more indie films and films that depict stories that aren’t typically seen on screen. One of my favorite directors in Sean Baker and he does a great job of that in his films.
I’m very much an introvert and have been fairly shy and socially anxious my whole life. I’m happy with being an introvert and very much love my alone time but would like to get myself more comfortable with talking to new people and having new experiences and work through the anxiety that prevents me from that.
I’m very much interested in the spiritual realm and all things mystical. Since I can remember I’ve been fascinated by spirits, numerology, synchronicities, crystals, astrology and asking questions like what is God, why are we all here, and what happens after we die? Unexplainable phenomenon is my favorite topic to talk about with people.
Two of my favorite people I highly admire are Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Anthony Bourdain. Yes, two of my idols are ex-heroin addicts named Anthony, I don’t know what exactly that says about me as a person but there you have it.
Why Am I Starting a Blog?
So, as I said above, I’ve had the idea of starting a blog for a couple years now. It started when I got dumped and had my whole life and the future I thought I was going to be living be uprooted within just a matter of minutes. After I took the time to grieve, I got myself to a place where I was able to start dreaming of new possibilities again and getting excited for a new unknown future very different from the one I thought I was headed towards.
That’s when the idea of taking a long-term trip and writing all about my experiences came to me. I remember spending an entire day looking up women’s travel blogs and getting insanely inspired and excited about the possibility of making that my reality too. Way before this breakup I had dreams of taking solo trips and travel has definitely always been my favorite thing to do in the world, so with the combination of all these factors and wanting a place I could write longwinded thoughts without being cut off by Instagram’s character limit, well starting a blog sounded like the perfect idea.
Since that day I left my job and home state and moved across the country to have a fresh start. I actually created my blog shortly after arriving in Michigan, but for the last two years I’ve been too scared to actually write anything and put it out in the world. I wanted to wait until I had a solid plan to take a long trip and had enough money saved up, and then covid hit and I had no idea when I’d be able to make that a reality. So, this blog has been on my mind every day for way too long now and it’s about damn time I just start. I have no idea when I’ll be able to save up enough money to take a longer-term trip solo or when this virus will no longer be infecting people—but in the meantime, I want a place to write my thoughts, opinions, stories, and experiences on relationships, places I’ve traveled, lifechanging meals, spirituality, mental health, things I love, things I hate, and anything and everything that involves being human and living in this world we live in.
I want this blog to always be a place where I can freely express myself and share whatever it is that I feel needs to be put out into the world. I’m very excited to be starting this journey and to see where this blog may take me! I hope that you’ll come along with me.