Astrid Adventures

New Space, New Face

Added 2024-04-25 01:30:01 +0000 UTC

I came to South Carolina with a few presumptions. It wasn't my first or second or third choice of places to move to, but it's the opportunity that life gave me. If modeling has taught me anything its to seize the opportunities no matter how strange and confusing they seem. Somehow it has led me down my best path and favorite adventures. I'm hoping to find a place that exceeds my expectations. I'm just now exploring the areas I'm close to. I hope to find little treasures. I'll be here for a while I think. I already drove past a graveyard surrounding a glorious pink church that I'm inspired to try to photograph. I think I'm finding new parts to myself and in this way I feel a little numb. Numb isn't the right word, but there is a lack of emotion and assumption, more curiousity and hope in its place. I won't recognize myself in a year. I don't know if I'd think of myself as the same person from a year ago. I'm in a completely new place, and a year ago that idea thrilled and scared me. It wasn't until I'd received a nasty email from a photographer demanding that I drive 3-5 hours to shoot with him for half a day, that I became more thrilled by the idea of a new life than scared. I was exhausted from traveling New York City all day, which is a difficult trek with a suitcase. I'm wandering around subways, hoping to catch to right train, so I can catch another train to take me to various ends of a large metropolis. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten lost, very lost. My second day in New York City got cancelled, and I wasn't even that upset because I was frustrated by the idea of another commute to a whole new area of New York in the heat. I had a pile of emails and messages waiting for me. I went back to my friend's beautiful and expensive apartment in Jersey City, and read this email from a photographer that booked for a week later, demanding to shoot at a location 3 hours away from our starting location and 5 hours away from where I needed to be that evening. That's an 8 hour drive for a 3 hour shoot. If this location was beautiful and private it'd be one thing, but it was a historic public park that he knew of. It meant sneaking around and hoping that it wouldn't be a popular morning. I couldn't justify the shoot. I told him I can't get to the location, and he got very upset. I wasn't surprised. He was well known for having a temper and this wasn't the first time he'd gone off on me. He was harmless, but a rude person. Sometimes he'd apologize later, but often he just let it fade with time. I looked around this glamorous apartment with a gym, next to nice restaurants, with a bathroom filled with nice lotions and cleansers, and the my friend's little dog. I wanted to feel like I deserved something nice, instead of mooching from a friend kind enough to let me stay on her air mattress. I wanted to cuddle my pet and have a space that felt like mine... other than my car. I wanted to feel like people thought I deserved the money I was making by doing a good job, and that I was doing something important. I told myself I have to find that. I'm not saying modeling has been horrible. If anything it gave me this confidence and sense that I do deserve better. I know how hard I work. It's that when I looked around me there wasn't a promotion. This was the job. I loved it. I wanted to create my next promotion. That meant taking a bit of a step back to think and rebuild. I wasn't going to find it doing the same thing I'd been doing for the last few years.