Seoul, South Korea (Ages 0 to 6, moved away in the spring).

A man and a woman meet, establish a connection, get married, have children. That's simply how things must be. A picture worth mounting on your mantle piece and never taking a close look at it, unless for some unsightly reason you want to discover what is truly there.

From what Eden remembers, they had a happy childhood. Sure, they don't remember their father being around. The man seemed to be split into four - the man who paced reciting foreign words that Eden used to imagine them as incantations. Then there was the voice on the telephone, sleepy and crackling and always so, so nice, so much nicer than Mama. Then of course, the man with the suitcase, big enough for Eden to fall asleep inside but would never be there in the morning. And the man who came home, a surprise that would make Eden cry every time it happened. The Papa who stayed at home who could so easily be terrifying but was mostly just kind.

Eden also had cousins, none of them nice. Early on family seemed to be something that wanted to twist itself into the most complex of shapes, settle into something undefinable and unknowable. But who Eden remembers the most is Mama.

Mama has always been beautiful, creative, brilliantly funny and fully unequiped to be a mother. She learnt, of course, did her best and succeeded many times over. Eden loves her, knows they always will. The woman who encouraged her little boy to be creative, to be curious, to be too loud and too weird to ever be normal. She'd never learnt to be affectionate, or talkative, or so many things they'd grow up to need. But she tried to be there, and that often was the most important thing.

Eden doesn't really remember the world as before or after Lavi, just suddenly the splotches of remembrances include a mostly quiet but somehow cunning toddler. Jealousy factored in some times, plenty of home videos show Eden trying to upstage Lavi's baby-fat cuteness and get some attention for themselves. But most of the time Eden just wanted Lavi to know he always had a friend, that a big brother meant never having to be lost or lonely.

Jeju, South Korea (Ages 6 to 11, moved away in early fall).

Little boys are meant to explore. Neither one of their parents expected the exploration that Eden had to undergo. It was clear in the years spent on the island that Eden was supposed to become a very ordinary little boy. The kind that no one would stare at too much in the synagogue, that would make his father look good never, ever bad.

Eden is sure they had a happy childhood but can remember the first times they felt more disappointment than anything else. It's not that Eden didn't love to play outdoors, didn't run around, climb up trees and mountains, ride his bike and scooter until the sun set over the horizon. The problem is that Eden would want to always swim like a mermaid, he wanted to be the yellow power range and transform like magical girls did. Eden wanted the purple bike with the sparkles and only seemed to ever make friends with little girls with too many dolls for comfort.

He was soft, his father said, and boys weren't soft, or emotional. Mama didn't find it such a bad thing, but the contrast to Lavi was unavoidable. They didn't want him to be just like his brother, no, not naughty and rebellious and always acting out. But Lavi liked blue, and soccer, and was perfectly quiet and attentive during sermons.

School was a terrifying echo of what was felt but never said at home as directly as the teasing voice of school boys did. Eden doesn't remember choosing to be masculine but there are plenty of photos of them as a little boy, head shaved, knees skinned, doing what a boy was meant to do. They never got good at it, at practicing to be a man. At least Dasha was there, whose home was a haven of selfhood.

Almería, Spain (Ages 11 to 13, moved away in early fall).

Eden would say they had a happy childhood up until this very moment. Even with all the beauty Almeria had to offer, Eden spent most of those years living deep within their mind. Nostalgia, however painful, was a much nicer place to be than private school, where nowhere looked or spoke like him. Becoming a teenager amplified everything that was seemingly wrong about him and how ready the world was to point it out and expect him to do something about it.

Friends were made out of necessity rather than kindness. I can't be alone. I can't be disliked. So Eden became funny, all it took was learning the language to have everyone laughing, with or at him didn't matter much most times. Funny, the way that used to be so charming and sweet when he was a little boy. People didn't pick on the funny kid as much, however gay and asian and jewish and wrong he was. Funny enough to be invited out sometimes, even if the funny boy was never really welcomed or included, he was at least allowed to be there.

Berlin, Germany (Ages 13 to 16, moved away in early summer).

At least Eden already spoke German. There was some comfort in that. Eden remembers being thankful they had a summer before school started. A summer not spent making friends or getting to know Berlin. No, a summer spent lost every day more in art and secret explorations of self. Their parents were the very description of absent and the internet became the perfect escape. Fashion, art, poetry, movies, shows, all the things they had once been sheltered from all out there to consume and Eden spent the summer learning about the world and them in it.

All of this meant Eden was a false sense of ready when starting out school. It didn't matter that they should be used to this, good at it by now. Eden knew who they were in broken pieces that didn't fit together yet but had to learn again that the world didn't care for anything that could mean any of it coming together. All of this was made harder by the fact that their parents decided to enroll them one month later than most to school. Everyone had friends and knew each other, most from infancy, and Eden was nothing short of a disruption.

But as time went by, Eden got taller, his voice got deeper, he got leaner and handsome as most would start to say. A handsome boy. A pretty boy. Enough to get the attention of girls at school and some envy from the boys there. It gave him a niche to belong in. Eden could be more flamboyant if he was with the artists, the fashion kids, the weird teenagers who most considered as trouble but were simply on the fringe. Not like he was, but close enough. Parties, booze, socializing, it was nice to fit in, to be loud and it be acceptable.

Seoul, South Korea (Ages 16 to 19, moved away in late summer).

Whatever small acceptance and normality they had found in Berlin was taken from them. At least they had Dasha, who helped them get through highschool in one piece even if it meant Eden would have to then go to army. There was plenty to distract them, at least. A family that grew more snide and judgemental by the day. A boyfriend that only knew how to love in secret. And an even growing rebellious streak as their refusal to die at the hands of shame overtook them.

Eden spent their last year of freedom growing their hair out so long that conversations about god tripled in their house. Working madly on a portfolio that would get them out of their house and back to Berlin as soon as they were done with the army. And away, any type of away, anywhere Dasha would take him, he would follow. Happy to be himself, or whatever he was, for however long they were together. Parties, festivals, getting on a train and just going, anywhere at all, at long as it seemed like a fun enough adventure. Doing more than just kissing boys on dares or drunk and never to be repeated was fun too. Of course, until it was time to be serious. Time to cut his hair short, time to get broken up with and shipped to the border as he knew he left behind a weeping mother and nervous father.

There were some things to be thankful for. The taekwondo lessons their father had pushed them to take. All the sparring they had ever had with Lavi. The fact that men in the army were obsessed with girl groups. That the people in his unit weren't the worst kind of vile around. There was also cigarettes, and beautiful mountains sometimes. A group of people who didn't have any choice but to get to know each other, because the human need to talk was ever present but there was no one there but each other.

Eden heard the word 'faggot' a lot less times than they anticipated. It was beyond difficult to swallow themselves down for a year and 6 months. They had spent so much time finding themselves and dismantling themselves it was hard to imagine ever being pieced together and finding a whole. But it was impossible to be entirely hopeless, when surrounded by boys who had dreams of a life too, of making something of themselves just like he did. There would be life, maybe, Eden could still have a chance to feel alive and not performing.

Berlin, Germany (Ages 19 to 21, moved away in early summer).

Eden had saved every penny they had made in the army, gotten into the Art University of Berlin to study Fine Art and had enough money to pay for the flight over. That was all they needed. Their family seemed shocked they wanted to go through with leaving after so much time away. Papa at least admired resolve, admired the necessity to find oneself and be unwavering at doing so. Money was promised, the one that would've gotten them through University in Seoul - although Eden would soon learn there wasn't enough for them as they had Lavi to think of.

Summer in Berlin meant an ever fluxuating group of friends, self discoveries and working retail for the very first time. It was fun, it was freedom, it was nothing but stress. Eden got good at learning how to make money, but it only got harder as school did. Teachers who seemed to dislike most of what they made for assignments they had very interest in doing. Eden got through the first year, thanks to friends and connections and too much hard work.

A full year there should've meant that things got more settled. Isn't being broken up with the perfect time to find balance? Instead, Eden woke up in a jolt with dozens of voices flooding their mind all at once. With every gasping breath of horror, the room seemed to shake, spin, pick up off the ground but no, that was them, that was Eden making everything crash into the walls and the windows burst from the gust on him.

Needless to say, school was put off after that. Eden knew they had self discoveries yet to make but this, this was never one of them. Sure they had imagined himself a magical girl most of his life. Had wondered if they were an alien left in their family's care and one day their skin would peel away and reveal the horrible reality. Eden had many hypothesis of why they couldn't just belong but of all the reasons to come to light, they didn't expect it to just show itself one all too normal Tuesday morning, this far into living.

Eden spent a year just trying to remember what normal was. It took a while to function through the dozens to hundreds of pleas that filled their mind, to understand the loudest parts of their new self and the safe ways to act on them. Longer still to not let every emotion become a current so strong it felt like it might take their skin with it and blow the whole world apart. All of this meant more fear, reset got added on to faggot and chink. Eden wondered how many more slurs they were expected to try to survive. It also meant less money, less hope, less friends, less everything that made them sure he'd have a tomorrow at all.

Their family demanded he come back to Seoul. Of course, first, there was denial. Accusations that just meant fear but hurt all the same. Then a plan of how it'd be dealt with. But Eden didn't want to deal with it, even less with their family who somehow made him feel worse. They needed their freedom. So they tried to keep on as normal, started dating, working more hours in all the jobs they could find, going out like nothing had happened.

It caught up to them. Nam Avery was the very last person Eden ever expected to see waiting for him at the door way of the apartment he shared with 4 other people. Avery, full of kindness and sympathy, asked Eden to come to New York, where he'd have a home, support, and a means to learn more about what happened to them. Eden learnt about a boy name Hugo, learned about too much for a mind to learn in just one day but there was proof with the promise. A plane ticket, a place to live, the possibility of getting to study again.

NY, NY, USA (Ages 21 to present).

Meeting Hugo wasn't easy, learning the truth and the beginning of navigating everything wasn't easy. But so much of it was liberating. People who embraced their truth even more than they could. Platforms for change, opportunities to be who would've made it so much easier to survive as a child to know were out there. Eden threw themselves into learning - themselves, their new courses, the people around them, being a hero and an expression all at once. Maybe even now, in the midst of it, it wasn't anything close to easy, but it was a choice they were happy to make each and every day.

It all couldn't be easy steps to take though. With the end of Lavi's army service came the news that Eden's family was hard on cash and their father had accepted a teaching position at Columbia and they had to give up everything they had built up in Seoul and come join them. Of course, once there their parents were sure to tell Eden that they had chosen New York for them. To finally get to be there with them, the way Eden had denied them all along. To support them. And Eden wanted to believe them, was touched and swept away by the gesture of family there, ready to be a family.

They claimed didn't expect Eden to help but New York was so expensive, even with wages and aid. Once Eden learnt of the living and monetary situation with the teams, they agreed to live with their family instead. For now, they promised themselves each time it got almost too heavy to bare, which it quickly did, just for now.