Chicago 2008

This December flashback takes me to a bitterly cold trip I made to Chicago sometime around 2008. I was living in New York City then, still in the early years of building a life that felt more like an initiation than a career. These photos capture something I could not fully articulate at the time. Three versions of myself, all competing, all trying to merge, none of them quite landing in my body yet.

It begins simply. Me in jeans. No costume. No persona. Just the girl I actually was when the cameras were off. A little shy. A little unsure. Rooted in something real and ordinary.

Then it shifts into the version of me that was the most recognized during that era. The strap-on goddess. Powerful. Mythic. Commanding. A role that never felt entirely natural in my bones, even though I performed it flawlessly for years. I can see it in my eyes now, the hint of distance, the effort it took to inhabit that archetype.

And then the final sequence. Me in a red thong, draped on a beautiful chair. Soft. Feminine. Glamorous. The classic pinup fantasy. A look that is stunning on camera, but never fully belonged to the woman I felt myself to be. It was yet another costume I knew how to wear, another version of beauty I learned to embody, even as something quieter in me whispered that it was not the whole story.

When I look back now, I can feel the magic of that moment. The confusion. The courage. The creative electricity. The ache of being split into versions of myself. The quiet yearning to become whole. These photos capture the exact place where those identities began to collide. They hold the innocence and the ambition, the armor and the softness, the performance and the truth.

If anything, they show a young woman doing her best to find herself. They remind me that becoming is always a process... a slow merging.

A thaw that happens one winter at a time.