Sometimes, I wonder if people can see my pain .. my sadness.. in my images. Do you love me for the beauty of the photo.. or do you love me for the reflection of the void in my heart that you feel in yours?
I have chronic, mild to severe, joint & back pain. Always. Modeling was one of the most incredibly painful things I've done in my life, without fail. A good portion of why I had to stop traveling was due to the increasing level of pain that being on an airplane or in a car would cause me... still causes me. I am forced to seek steady, "real world" employment in the hopes of finding something with insurance that will allow me to have these issues diagnosed and treated on a regular basis.
Though.. sometimes I think giving up the "traveling model" identity .. might almost be more painful then the reason I had to let it go.
I deeply miss modeling. I miss the creativity.. the connection.. the flow of movement. I adored being the "chameleon", and the pleasure of seeing new images I helped create. It's an addiction.. a craving.. a need. There's an old superstition that cameras consume your soul. Every photo takes a piece of it until, eventually, there's nothing left of you except what's in the camera.
I suddenly understand why the story came about.
Modeling is a consuming, hungry, gluttonous thing. You give to it because it needs to take, and because you need to give. You feed the camera what you have inside of you, so that you might become the image .. the art.. the wonder of what it will give birth to. You become the blank canvas .. the hand, the eyes, the body .. you are no longer the name on your birth certificate. You are "Model".. and it will ravenously feast at the banquet of you until you become undeniably altered.
Am I better for this? I don't know.
I occasionally catch myself pining for it, like a lost love .. a heartache that throbs just enough to remind you some deeply engrained piece of you is missing.
Eyes are beautiful because they cry. Models are beautiful because they give, change, grow, become.
