The Art of Getting Over It - Welcome!

Welcome to TAOGOI: The Art of Getting Over It, my name is Allie and I write under the penname Taogoi. If you're wondering how that came to be, it's inspired by the last thing my grandmother said to me before she passed- "Shouldn't you be over that by now? It's late, you should go."

At the time, I was trying to open up to her about a classmate abusing me after my sexual assault when I was 15. I obviously didn't get very far in my truth before she devastated my budding self-esteem. If that was the going to be the family attitude, I figured there must be an art to getting over things, I just had to find it. To keep myself emotionally safe, I started to write poetry under this penname in order to process my grief and anger.

Long story short- after hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in 2019 and 2020, I decided to publish the poetry I wrote during my first ever backpacking adventure '19 and have been working slowly on a larger, mixed media book of what I wrote in 2020. I had the unfortunate experience of getting involved with an abusive man I met on trail that later tried to kill me in 2020, so that is me going to take much longer to write. Life is nothing if not complex and deserving of processing, is it not? The goal of this site is to inspire women to take that leap of faith into going after their goals, especially in the outdoors spaces that have been well known to be male dominated. If you've gone through some truly awful things, that doesn't have to be the main highlight of your life. It's something I've personally had to learn to cope with. My closest friends know that most of my stories cause the listener to become concerned, but that doesn't mean I am not able to write new stories.

Abby and I plan to start interviewing other women who have found ways to cope and grow while grappling with changing their own stories. We are excited to build a community of people who want to raise each other out of the dark, and shine light on those who have been working hard to create something beautiful.

So, welcome again to The Art of Getting Over It, a place where stories begin.

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--Allie