Picture Little Shawn, twirling in ecstasy with the spice girls in their ears, attached to their purple ipod nano (I had convinced myself that loving the colour purple was totally not a queer trait – “Oh I only love the dark purple and not the lighter one that girls like”)… I recently unlocked this veryContinue reading “Little Shawn”
Tag Archives: coming out
New year, new commitment
Toward the close of 2022, I was burnt out. It was a year of rapid transformations, new findings, new beginnings, and new friends. While it was an upward stride of new discovery, it was paired with a downward plunge into what I did not want to see. The things I had repressed for two decadesContinue reading “New year, new commitment”
Nails, hair, hips, pray
*Trigger warning: blades/sharp objects* There was always something about nail polish that caught my attention. My nana (my mother’s mother) was a fabulous woman whose uniform was her drawn-on black eyebrows and her bold ruby lips. Occasionally she would dip into her assorted collection of nail polish. Whenever her sisters used to visit from theContinue reading “Nails, hair, hips, pray”
Non-Binary? Yeah.
“Kia ora! As most of you know I am Shawn and I sit across the Human Centered Design and equity teams… and *unexpected need for a deep breath* I am non-binary” Oh god, I have never said that out loud before… I scramble together the rest of my sentences and move on with the objectiveContinue reading “Non-Binary? Yeah. “
Healing my inner child
“Healing your inner child”… I heard this term very recently and I haven’t been able to shrug it off. I never imagined my inner child as a different being which probably explains why I have always refused to answer the question: “If you could say something to 10-year-old Shawn right now, what would you say?”Continue reading “Healing my inner child”
The boy loves Barbies
Where I grew up, a real boy was preoccupied with cricket or other contact sport, was uninterested in anything remotely creative, and was outside with the other boys in the blistering heat while the girls played wedding inside the house during family parties. I was the oldest cousin on both sides of my family. IContinue reading “The boy loves Barbies”
BOOTS the house down
Alright, let’s do an activity… go to your closet, dresser, shoe rack, or even bathroom cabinet. Now pick out an item from there that you save for those feel-good moments, where when you put it on you feel on top of your game and subsequently on top of the mother-tucking world. I don’t know aboutContinue reading “BOOTS the house down”
Purgatory
A common thread in my self-discovery has been my relationship with religion. I was raised almost conservatively Christian, and those values and traditions still dictate my everyday routine. I guess it was all I knew. I say almost because my childhood was based in a society where the Western World was esteemed as the pinnacleContinue reading “Purgatory”
Daydreaming
Below is a wee snippet of my Master’s thesis I submitted a couple of years ago. During these very challenging couple of years completing my project for the submission, I was confronted with a series of very emotional changes in myself. Now by changes, I do not mean physically, but more changes with some veryContinue reading “Daydreaming”
Atlas
From a very young age, I seemed to have a fascination with the Atlas. I had this giant map of the world that draped over a wall in the guest room of the very first house we (my family and I) lived in when we first immigrated to New Zealand. I never took an interestContinue reading “Atlas”
Ceylon's Finest 