i’ve started editing a little again collecting ideas before japan and probably packing them in my suitcase with me 🩹🩹

i wasted years trying to fit into a certain lifestyle and seem put together, but most of it was unconsciously performative. the gray muted aesthetic photographed well, but the life surrounding it was honestly much more disturbing than anything i’m doing now. i would travel specifically to places that looked like they could drain every good feeling out of you. i consumed graphic media, music, imagery, people, and environments that eventually stopped feeling like inspiration and became the atmosphere of my life. i used substances that made everything feel unreal and muted every emotion i actually wanted to keep. some of the things i used to surround myself with genuinely frighten me now. that extremely dark aesthetic was never just an aesthetic for me. i looked like that because it reflected what i was constantly consuming. people probably thought it made me look serious, tasteful, or emotionally controlled, but nothing in my actual life was controlled. i was just making myself visually quieter while everything underneath became stranger.

people judge almost everything from physical appearance. they see your hair, makeup, clothing, body, or whatever style of art you are making at the time and decide they understand your entire personality. a lot of people also found me through the extremely detailed mechanical work i used to make, and i’m realizing now that some of them were attached to that version of my work more than they were ever interested in the person making it. now that both my appearance and my art are changing, they act like i’ve become somebody completely different. since i started sharing this version of myself online, people i genuinely thought were my friends have blocked or unfollowed me. some of them were people i gave free tattoos to because i believed we had an actual friendship, which is honestly funny now. it doesn’t really phase me because clearly they either disliked the way i looked, disliked the fact that my work changed, or were attached to a character they created from both. either way, thank you for removing yourselves before i eventually had to do it for you.

thankfully, i’ve also found people who accept me regardless of what my hair looks like, what i’m wearing, or what kind of art i feel like making. i’ve found new clients who understand that an artist can have more than one style and that changing does not erase everything you made before. color has been coming back into my life for months now, literally. i’ve always loved change and i’ve always wanted to evolve because that is what people do. i have never been normal, subtle, or easy to categorize. i’ve always loved strange hair, dramatic makeup, unusual clothes, pink and black everything, cute objects, and men who look like dolls. none of that is new. i’m just remembering that being strange does not have to mean surrounding myself with things that make me feel empty. i’m sorry if me liking cute things and beautiful men who look delicately manufactured is somehow offensive to you. i’m sorry if you think i look like one too and can no longer tell the difference. i am aware that i’m very beautiful.