So, for a while now, more than five years at this point, I’ve been living on my own. Living on my own in the sense that I haven’t had any proper friendships or relationships. I see people daily, converse daily, but the conversations stop at a point. It’s not that I don’t want to make any friendships or relationships, I just don’t feel like I found my people as of yet. I believe myself to be an extrovert, though sometimes shy, people energize me. I used to have a lot of friends, but I had to stop being friends with them because they weren’t seeing me how I wanted to be seeing, this goes for family as well. In the past posts where I advocate, I speak a lot about how other people’s perceptions can become your own if you’re not careful enough and this is exactly why I decided to go at it alone for however long. If I had kept my “friends” or listened to my family, I do not believe I would come this far in my work, confidence, and abilities. Five years ago, I decided to teach myself how to sing, my whole family tried to convince me to stop when I would post my singing on the internet, even distant friends tried to tell me subliminally to stop, but I expected it, so I brushed it off. If I had listened to them, my singing voice would not have improved the way it has, my ideas would not be as potent, and I would be less confident.

I’m thankful I did fashion photography so young because when I first started in high school, a lot of people would say “I don’t know why he keeps posting those pictures, he’s not even that good.” I didn’t listen then, but it did hurt. I feel like going through that experience initially prepared me for when I would decide to teach myself other things and I’d have to suck in the beginning. But anyway, for a long time, I thought it was normal for friends / family to not necessarily support you, I tried to convince myself that my career and art are something separate from my personal life, which it can be, but I’m learning that the people in my life should be able to support me in the thing I dedicate my life to.