**I AM OUT OF PRISON!** what a wild ride I've just been on..

**I AM OUT OF PRISON!** what a wild ride I've just been on! I can't wait to tell you about it - expect plenty of sexy secrets about prison life, wild stories of the things I saw, and a lot of creative content. I've got so many ideas, obviously, because I had so much time to think about them! I used to keep my personal life, my activist life and my work life very separate. I used to believe that for each of these parts of my life to succeed I must work on them individually and independently. However, I realised in prison that segregating the foundational facets of my existence inhibits the merging of the qualities that each one demands. In my personal life I love travelling, reading, learning about other cultures, making friends, but I struggle with expressing my feelings. My activist life demands dedication and conviction, and thrives when I can express myself. My work life requires creativity, being open and vulnerable. Without much depth of thought it is easy to see how the qualities I require in one aspect of my life are necessary and transferrable to another, and in my attempt to keep them separate I have prevented this important fusion. How this relates to prison is quite profound really, because although I was incarcerated for my activism, there are so many stages in my life and other sides of my personality which set me up for it. My empathy put me in prison, my political beliefs put me in prison, a book put me in prison, my physical body put me in prison. So I'm taking an oath. Let things converge. Let the comfortable shake hands with the uncomfortable. Introduce bravery to vulnerability. Experiment with new ideas and seek new facets of my identity. How I ever thought being one thing at a time was ever going to work I don't know, and I must have been trying to run away from it for a while. It has been staring me in the face for years. Jasmine, it is time. Be soft, be strong. I can't wait to introduce you to the other wild sides of me. Are you excited to embark on this journey? *swipe the see pictures of my tag (bracelet I have to wear on my ankle while I am serving my sentence in the community), of me looking cute today, of me out doing shoots, doing activism, and being released from prison!*