11 Speedos Later I Found My Love Language

Puerto Vallarta. A gay pool party. Eleven speedos tried on in the span of an afternoon.

And somewhere between speedo #7 and #11, something shifted.

For the first time in my life, I said the words out loud: "I am happy."

It felt like a confession. Like admitting to a crime I didn't know I was allowed to commit.

This episode is about the moment survival stopped being enough. The moment I decided I deserved more than just "not dead yet."

The moment I chose joy.

Content warnings: This podcast contains discussions of childhood sexual abuse, addiction, violence, death, and trauma. But it also full of profound love, transformation, and hope. Listener discretion advised.

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The Archaeologist of My Souls: 1 in 8.3 Billion

Episode Twelve: Eleven Speedos Later, I Found My Love Language

Content warnings: This podcast contains discussions of childhood sexual abuse, addiction, violence, death, and trauma. But it also full of profound love, transformation, and hope. Listener discretion advised.

By the time I boarded my flight to Puerto Vallarta I had cried enough tears to hydrate a small cult. But I was clear about one thing: this trip was not about running away. It was about showing up differently.

Tommy and I had booked the trip months earlier—a week at our timeshare nestled in this little village of glitter and gay excess, Almar Gay Luxury Resort. And instead of canceling out of principle or pain, I chose to go alone.

Because I wasn't going to let my heartbreak steal the present from me. Not this time. Not anymore.

I wanted joy. Pure joy. Not performed joy but real internal cellular joy. The kind that comes from the inside out instead of being reflected back at you from someone else's approval.


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The night before departure I was far more concerned with packing sexy swimwear than emotional baggage. And if you've ever been to a gay resort you know the cardinal rule: never be that girl who wears the same swimsuit twice.

By the time I'd hit eleven swimsuits I figured I was covered. And that's when I picked up the phone and called my dear friend Andonios—a quirky radiant soul with the title of Director of Clinical and Spiritual Psychology, which is basically like being a Jedi with a PhD. Except instead of the Force he channeled something closer to unconditional love mixed with brutal honesty.

You didn't talk to Andonios to fix your problems. You talked to him to feel seen.

And he told me: "Say these affirmations when you arrive. Repeat them until they become a rhythm in your bones: I am love. I am joy. I am light. End it with gratitude."
I nodded, mentally eye-rolling. Because really? Affirmations? But secretly I packed those words right next to my SPF and cologne like they were another essential item I might need to survive the week.


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The Mantamar Beach Club at Almar is not for the spiritually fragile.

It's a high-charged sexual oasis disguised as a luxury pool lounge. Think A-list gays with accents and Viagra. It's gays gone wild with foreskin shooter shots and lots of off-brand steroids in tank tops. Oh, and lots of hard-ons. Go ahead and Google it, select images, and you'll get the scene.

But it's also home. It's been my slice of paradise for twelve years. I've met lifelong friends there, lost inhibitions there. And once there was a man named Enzo who may or may not have tried to hypnotize me into marriage. I'm still not entirely sure what happened that week.


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And as I walked toward the pool entrance with my heart tight and my chest buzzing, my inner voice screamed: "AFFIRMATIONS. NOW."

So I closed my eyes. Right there in public. Dead in my tracks. Like I was about to reboot my entire operating system.

I am love.

I am joy.

I am light. Thank you.
And something shifted. Something clicked into place that I can only describe as tuning to a different frequency. Like I'd been listening to static my whole life and suddenly found the actual station.
Let me try this on, I thought.

Suddenly I wasn't walking into a resort with baggage. I was walking into a space with generosity as my currency. And that generosity felt worth its weight in cosmic gold.


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That day my mission wasn't to please or be desired. It wasn't about looking hot or getting validation or proving I was fine without Tommy. It was to give joy without expectation. No thank you I don't want to fuck you or your second husband but HOWARE YOU? To show up radiant and open and unarmored.

I felt so liberated I created a game: who haven't I talked to in the pool yet?

I walked up to pretty queens from WeHo, my NYC boys, my favorite Texas girls, with my hand out like I was running for mayor of the fucking pool. And I said: "Hi, I'm Cal. How are you? Let's talk feelings. Shame anyone?"

Too subtle?

Well people ate it up. And the handshake. The handshake was manly and caught people off guard because who the fuck shakes hands at a gay pool party? But that was the point. I wasn't playing by the usual rules.

I mean of course not everyone was my fan. Lots of "who she tryin to be?!" stares from the sidelines. But whatever. I was the one talking to all the hot boys while they pretended that applying sunscreen was a mating call.

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By the third day something wild happened: people were approaching me. "You're glowing."
"Who are you?"
"You're just... generous with your energy."

And I realized—holy shit—this is what vibrational energy feels like. You can feel it. You can cultivate it. You can share it. And it is pure joy. Not the performance of joy but the actual frequency of it.

I had spent decades trying to be chosen. Trying to be enough. Trying to earn love through whatever currency the other person accepted—sex, performance, dimming myself, amplifying myself, whatever it took.

And now? Now I had chosen myself. A miracle.
The day I stopped asking to be loved and became love, my whole life changed.

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This was my first taste. My first real understanding that there was another way to move through the world. That I didn't have to wait for someone to give me permission to feel joy. That I could generate it myself and it would radiate out and people would feel it and respond to it.

This was the beginning of understanding frequency. Of recognizing that I'd been collecting something all along without knowing what it was—not just experiences or places or people, but states of being, moments when I touched something real and true and undeniable.

Puerto Vallarta became another artifact. Another piece of evidence that transformation was possible. That I could choose differently. That joy wasn't something I had to earn through suffering or wait to receive from someone else.

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On the last day I found myself standing on the balcony in my eleventh swimsuit, holding a coffee like a sacred relic, whispering: "I am love. I am joy. I am light. Thank you."
Then I walked to a local tattoo artist and had him ink these words onto my arm: Vivre avec joie—live with joy.

That's my mission. Every day.

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Joy isn't something you earn once you've suffered enough. It's not a reward for staying in bad relationships or making it through another round of trauma. It's a birthright.

And when you stop outsourcing it, when you stop waiting for someone to hand it to you, it comes back. Loud. Bright. Full-body.

You are the divine creator of your possibilities. You are the main character in your own movie. And the moment you start acting like it, everything shifts.

I didn't know it then but this was preparation. This week in Puerto Vallarta was teaching me how to hold a frequency I'd need later. It was showing me that I could choose joy even in the middle of heartbreak. That I could show up generous and open even when I wanted to hide. That I could become love instead of begging for it.

This was the warm-up for Versailles, for Thailand, for every moment later when I'd need to remember that I could tune myself to joy instead of waiting for the world to do it for me.

Another artifact collected. Another piece of the excavation. Another moment when I touched something real and it changed me.