08 June.

Early on the morning of 8 June 2018, I woke up and checked my phone.

“Anthony Bourdain dead at age 61.” The words filled post after post in my newsfeeds, and while still in bed next to my then-boyfriend I barely whispered “Oh my god. Bourdain is dead”. Normally a heavy sleeper and generally ambivalent to my interests, my bf woke right up and asked “are you ok?”

I don’t know if I am, still. I only met him briefly, a starstruck fangirl on a drunken SXSW evening whom I’m sure he never remembered but I still cringe over, yet his life and legacy will paint mine forever.

Chef Bourdain filled hearts, palates and imaginations for decades. When I was just starting on my culinary career in high school, his memoir Kitchen Confidential was the guide that helped me reconcile the two sides of the culinary world, and by proxy, my own identity: one could create gorgeous art in the world for people to experience while living an antithetical life: dark and sometimes lonely, rarely glamourous behind the scenes.

He validated me without ever knowing me. Through his love of travel, food and plunging himself into the unknown, he allowed me a roadmap for my life. I loved and admired him deeply, and his death grieves me to this day.

One day I might can make this about him, but losing a hero is a deeply personal experience as well. I am heartbroken by his choice, his loss. By living openly and loudly, Bourdain gave 16-year-old Kelsey the permission to live her dreams. I’m not now a chef, but what I’ve learned in my years in kitchens made me who I am today.

In 2019, a dear friend gifted me this print that hangs in my house. It’s one of the most thoughtful gifts I’ve ever received, and it’s a constant reminder to live fully and keep telling the monsters to fuck off. I have them, you have them, we all do. Their existence isn’t our failure, it’s our surrender to let them feast on our lives that is the loss.

If you are contemplating suicide, please know that your life means more than you know. Pain in life is inevitable and sometimes unbearable, but it will pass. I know that pain, I know that it can pass, and I am here for you.