NAKEDJEN

Tag: mental-health

  • Still Here. Barely.

    I shaved my head last Monday.

    Not for fashion. Not for a dare. Not for reinvention as some shiny little brand strategy.

    I did it because my body needed a receipt.
    Because my heart kept whispering, we are letting go now, and I needed my scalp to sign the paperwork.

    Gizmo died.

    Sundance ended. Not just the festival, but the way of it here. The particular Utah snowglobe version where I knew the back hallways, the green rooms, the secret shortcuts, the faces that needed feeding, the ones that needed a tissue, the ones that needed a firm hand on the shoulder and a “drink some water, babe, I’ve got you.” Ten days of taking care of everyone… and then suddenly the lights go out and you’re standing in a quiet room full of empty chairs, holding a lanyard like it’s a relic.

    And Burning Man? I closed that chapter too. I am not going back this year. I can feel the hinge click. I can feel the door seal. I can feel the desert wind on the other side and I’m not stepping into it. I’m finished. I’m choosing something new even though I don’t yet know what “new” looks like.

    Also, because life has a sense of timing that is either comedic or cruel (or both), my credit card got compromised. So this morning I drove to the bank, bald as bald can be, and I started thinking about what it would be to make a documentary of my life.

    Not the highlight reel. Not the montage where the camera pans across costumes and concerts and glamorous chaos.

    More like… the witness list.

    Because if you really wanted to tell the story of me, you would have to find the people I have helped along the way. The ones who would say: she showed up. She filled the gap. She made it happen. She walked into the mess and started organizing the corners. She brought the water. She brought the snacks. She brought the extra phone charger, the spare hoodie, the peppermint oil, the hand on your back when you were about to fold.

    I’m the fill-in-the-blank fairy.

    Sundance Fairy.
    Fluffer Fairy.
    Share Your Sandwiches Fairy.
    Missing-person search Fairy.
    “Let me just handle it” Fairy.
    “Here, eat something” Fairy.
    “Breathe with me” Fairy.

    And I never, ever, ever accept payment. I have built an entire life on the belief that if I keep giving, the universe will keep providing, and maddeningly… it does. It really does. Doors open. Tables appear. Someone hands me exactly what I need right when my hands are empty.

    I’ve trusted that so hard that it became my religion.

    Even back on Grateful Dead tour, even in those long-ago days when everything was loud and wild and starry and half-improvised, I was still taking care of people. I made Clyde’s Cookies on tour, vegan, organic chocolate chip cookies, because I needed a way to support myself, yes, but also because it was a survival mechanism. A nervous system strategy. A way to stay steady in the swirl. A way to love people and the planet at the same time. Those cookies ended up in cafés all over Santa Cruz even when the Dead weren’t touring. Little brown-sugar love letters in a world that moves too fast.

    I have been in service most of my life. I don’t say that with a halo. I say it with the honesty of someone who knows service can be both medicine and the perfect hiding place.

    Because here’s the part I’m trying to tell the truth about:

    Right now, I feel broken.

    Like… really broken.

    Not “I’m having a hard day” broken. Not “I just need a bath and a nap” broken.

    More like: I cry over silly things. A song lyric. A dog on a porch. A stranger’s hands. The way light hits a kitchen counter. I cry because my heart is full of endings and my body doesn’t know where to put them. I cry because I can’t fix any of the big things right now, and I am a person who has built a whole identity around fixing. I just can’t seem to find the Nakedjen superglue AND the duct tape.

    The world is hurting. It really and truly is. There is a real revolution happening and I am paying attention. I am not looking away. I can feel the instability in the air like static. I can feel the grief in the streets. I can feel the fear. I can feel the fire. Sometimes it feels like the whole planet is holding its breath, waiting to see who will choose cruelty and who will choose care.

    I want to be the person who chooses care.

    I am still that person.

    I’m just… shaky.

    I’m alive, but barely. Tender as an overcooked beet. Raw in a way that surprises me. Not numb, not detached, not checked out.

    Just open. Too open. All nerve endings.

    So this is me, leaving a little note on the community bulletin board of the internet:

    Hi. It’s Nakedjen.
    My head is bald. My heart is bruised. I’m still here.
    I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I know something is happening in me. Something is changing shape.

    If you’re reading this and you’re also crying in grocery store aisles, or feeling oddly fragile in the parking lot, or standing in the doorway of your own endings… come sit by me.

    No fixing required.

    Just the quiet promise that we are not alone in this, even when we feel like cracked glass.

    And if the universe has been kind enough to keep meeting me in the moments when I’m empty, then maybe it will meet me here too.

    Maybe it will meet all of us here.

    One breath at a time.

  • Afterwords

    I’m not here to write about how August was found.
    That story is already orbiting the globe, carried by hearts far larger than mine.
    What I need to write — what I must write — is how these last 24 days rearranged me from the inside out.

    Because something in me changed.
    Shifted.
    Cracked open like a geode that didn’t know it was full of light.

    For 24 days, this city — this state — this strange and stubborn place we call home — showed up with a force I was not prepared for. I’ve lived here long enough to be grumpy about it. Long enough to feel like Utah and I have an ongoing feud. But let me tell you something with my whole chest:

    Don’t tell me this city ain’t got no heart.
    I heard it beating. Loud. Unified. Unstoppable    .

    People I had never met became my family.
    People who shouldn’t have had time made time.
    People who were exhausted kept going.
    People who had nothing still gave everything.
    People who live outdoors — who navigate survival every damn day — carried the torch with a clarity and grace that humbled me to my knees.

    Yesterday, on a hunch that didn’t make sense on paper but burned in my gut, I drove to Redwood Road. I walked into the pockets of humanity we call “the unhoused community,” gently, respectfully, palms open.

    I didn’t demand.
    I didn’t accuse.
    I didn’t interrogate.

    I said, softly, “I know the code. If you’re helping him, you have your reasons. He’s an adult. You don’t owe me anything. But his mother is on day 24 of her own hell, and she just needs to know her son is alive. Please. Let him know she loves him. Let him know it’s okay to check in. That’s all I’m asking.”

    And something changed in the man standing in front of me — not his posture, but his energy.
    It was like watching a lantern ignite behind his ribs.

    He looked at me steady and said,
    “I’ll make sure your message gets where it needs to go.”

    I clasped my hands.
    I bowed my head.
    I whispered, “Thank you.”
    And I walked away.

    Hours later, August was found.
    Not because of me —
    because collective care is a force of nature.

    Because Salt Lake City —
    in all its contradictions, its rough edges, its quiet resilience —
    showed the hell up.

    Because people who live outside, who are dismissed and overlooked and judged daily, were the ones who held the line with the most dignity and strength. They are the heroes of this story.
    Say it out loud.

    And let me tell you what all of this did to me:

    I have been the Chief Love Beet my whole life.
    I show up.
    I take care of people.
    I fix the things I can.
    I hold the ones I love.
    I drag my glittery boots into the dark and try to make it lighter.

    But this?
    This was different.

    This time, I wasn’t the one holding the container — the container held me.

    Salt Lake City held me.
    The volunteers held me.
    The mothers held me.
    The grievers held me.
    The searchers held me.
    The unhoused community held me with a kind of honor I will never forget.

    We cracked our hearts together like a chorus of fault lines.
    We refused to give up.
    We refused to look away.
    We refused to let “impossible” have the last word.

    I am changed.
    I can feel it.
    A new chamber in my heart, carved by 24 days of strangers-turned-family, by the hum of hope vibrating through every street, by the relentless love of a mother who would not stop.

    August is alive.
    And so, somehow, am I —
    in a way I wasn’t before.

    Thank you, Salt Lake City.
    Thank you to every single person who loved outside their bodies.
    Thank you to those who showed up even when it felt impossible.
    Thank you to our unhoused brothers and sisters who carried this story with honor.
    Thank you to the fierce, unshakeable ache that binds us as humans.

    This wasn’t a search.
    This was a remembering.

    We belong to each other.
    Still.
    Always.
    Especially when the world forgets.

  • 💜 Purple Alert: Why I Still Search for August

    💜 Purple Alert: Why I Still Search for August

    People keep asking me why I’m still searching for August.

    Here’s the truest answer I have:
    Because I can. And because I hope you would, too.

    Because if your heart beat just a little louder —
    if you heard a tremor in the universe,
    a missing pulse,
    a soft human who hasn’t come home —
    I like to believe you’d go looking.

    Even if you didn’t know him.
    Even if he was 29, grown, and complicated.
    Even if the world insists adulthood equals safety.
    (Trust me, it doesn’t.)

    Sometimes a brain goes haywire.
    Sometimes it lights itself on fire.
    Sometimes a person walks away naked into the snow
    and doesn’t even know they’re gone.

    I know this because once — I was the one who wandered.

    New Year’s Eve, 2008

    (which was technically still 2007 because time is a suggestion)

    I had just moved to Salt Lake City.
    A blizzard.
    No friends yet.
    Just two black labradors — Buddha and Stella —
    who carried my heart on eight paws like it was their holy job.

    I don’t remember the seizures.
    I only remember becoming conscious in the snow.
    Naked. Disoriented. Freezing. Alone.

    Not metaphorically.
    Actually and literally wandering the city,
    no memory of how I got there,
    no idea where “home” even was.

    I saw the glow of a Smith’s supermarket.
    Closed. Empty.
    But a payphone in the vestibule leaked just enough light
    to feel like a lifeline.

    I remembered one number.
    Collect.
    My mother.

    “Mom… I’m naked and cold and I don’t know where I am.”
    “Jennifer, you’re in Utah.”
    “Why would I do THAT?”

    She called emergency services from Maryland.
    She told them where to find her daughter
    wandering state-newborn and soaked in snow.
    They found me.
    They wrapped me in blankets.
    They got me home.

    And when we arrived?
    Every single light in my house was on.
    Front door wide open.
    Two dogs sitting guard — waiting.
    Holding vigil over whatever was left of me.

    If I hadn’t found that payphone,
    if I hadn’t seen those lights,
    if Buddha and Stella hadn’t anchored me to this world,
    if — if — if —

    I could have disappeared.
    Forever.
    Just like that.

    No alert. No network.
    No hey Utah, one of us is missing — go look.

    That is my WHY.

    That is why I search for August.
    Because someone should.
    Because his mother deserves not to wonder.
    Because he deserves to be alive and found if he wants to be.

    Because there is a world where that night was me
    and nobody knew to sound an alarm.

    Utah doesn’t have a PURPLE ALERT.

    But it should.
    Every state should.
    A Purple Alert for adults who wander,
    who are neurodivergent or vulnerable or lost in the fog of a burning brain.
    Not a punishment.
    Not a trap.
    Not a “gotcha.”

    Just a net.
    A community rally.
    A lifeline in the snow.

    It is not a miracle.
    But it could save one life.
    And that is enough.

    I have systems now.
    Layers.
    If I go missing again — alarms will go off.
    Texts will fly.
    People will look.

    Not everyone has that.

    August doesn’t have that.

    He is missing.
    Still.
    And I’m not ready to stop searching.

    If you’re reading this, you don’t have to know August to care.
    You just have to remember something simple:

    There was a night I could have been the one you were searching for.

    And every mother deserves to sleep knowing
    that if her child wanders naked into the snow —
    a city will rise like hands to catch them.

    💜 Utah deserves a PURPLE ALERT.
    💜 August deserves to be found.
    💜 And any one of us could be next.

    If this moved you — share it.
    Talk about Purple Alerts.
    Help me make noise.

    We’re still looking for August.
    Let’s not stop.

  • Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

    (or why my nausea finally makes sense)

    Yesterday, I did one of the hardest things I’ve done in a long time.
    I walked into the clinic where I have poured more than a decade of my life—my heart, my care, my precision, my sparkle—and I walked out for the last time.

    Just me. My bag. My dignity.
    And Clyde waiting for me at home like the good boy he is.

    I left my keys.
    I left a thank you note.
    And I left behind every single one of my crystals—my crystals, the ones that have been tucked gently in spaces there and through a thousand seasons of patients and stories and healing and heartbreak.

    But those crystals were humming with the clinic’s energy now, not mine.
    They vibrated with all the unspoken tension and the gaslighting and the quiet “it’s not you, it’s me” nonsense that became the soundtrack of too many broken promises.
    They weren’t mine anymore.

    I walked out without them.
    A conscious uncoupling from quartz.

    Here’s the part that feels like a cosmic joke: I had nausea before I went.
    The kind where you feel like your throat is closing and your stomach is in a fist and your body is whispering:

    “We don’t belong here anymore.”

    My body knew.
    It always knows.

    By the time I returned the keys, I felt everything—
    the heartbreak, the betrayal, the relief, the exhaustion, the “finally.”

    And then this morning—because the Universe has the comedic timing of a drunk circus clown—I got a text from the clinic upstairs.

    They were confused. People were showing up for a Tai Chi class that wasn’t happening at the clinic—because why would it be? It’s happening at the new qigong school.
    And they didn’t have my boss’s number.
    OF COURSE THEY DIDN’T.

    They texted me, because even without me there, I’m still the one who fixes everything. The one who knows. The one with the answers.

    I had to tell them, “I don’t work there anymore.”
    And then, because I’m me, I gently guided the lost Tai Chi humans to the correct location.
    Because kindness costs nothing and I refuse to abandon confused people in a parking lot.

    But I didn’t forward anything to him.
    Not my problem.
    Not my circus.
    Not my qigong monkeys.

    My professor joked this morning that he’s waiting for the inevitable front-page New York Times feature, because, well… the last time a man blindsided me and walked out, it did end up splashed across the national news.

    But this? No.
    He doesn’t get that kind of press.
    He doesn’t get a think piece.
    He doesn’t get a photo.
    He doesn’t get my rage or my heartbreak or my spotlight.

    He gets… silence.

    The same silence he gave me.

    What he does get is a tiny footnote in the book of my life:
    a bad-juju boyfriend I should have broken up with earlier,
    a lesson in boundaries I clearly needed,
    and the reminder that when the Universe wants you out, it will make you sick to your stomach until you listen.

    So here I am.
    Waking up today without keys, without crystals, without the weight of a place that could not hold me.
    My nausea is gone.
    My anxiety is quiet.
    Clyde snored on my feet all night in full approval.

    I know this much now:
    I didn’t lose anything.
    I got my freedom back.
    This is the messy, painful, holy part of the story where the door closes so loudly you jump…
    and then realize you’re already walking toward the door that’s opening.

    I’m okay.
    Better than okay.
    I’m free.

    xo,
    nakedjen