Wanting to post a selfie to show off my new glasses vs still being afraid to post my face on the internet and also low-grade background dysphoria
Credits, clockwise: screenshot from a discord video call by a friend, 2020; photo by Rachel Birdy in her studio, 2022; photo by an old partner Janine at COSI, 2023; Picrew (source unknown/lost, presumed artist for picrew is the watermark), estimated to be june 2021.
They were heavy, uncomfortable, fit poorly to my face so they never stayed on, constantly pinched my nostrils shut and by the end did more harm than help.
But I wore them for 6 years, through weddings and funerals, festivals and pandemics, hookups and breakups, moments of euphoria and dysphoria, incredible hope and absolute despair. They were one of the first truly "feminine" things I outright purchased in public, early in my transition, instead of spending all my time scared and hiding. So much of transitioning and identity is tied up in appearances, for better or worse, and this old frame was very tied up in all of mine. I measure my life often in phases of six years, so this truly is the end of one era and the start of another.
I like the contrast between the first and second pictures. The first was a candid screenshot in a normal video hangout with friends, that someone capped on a whim, but it remains one of the greatest photos of me ever taken. Set that against the second, which was during basically a photoshoot with Rachel at the time in her home/studio in Wales. She is a spectacular photographer as well as musician, and put a lot of work into getting everything just right about that moment. I included the picrew because while the resources were in no way based on my own glasses, it is uncannily accurate to how they look.
Also, hole.
Casually posting hole on cohost.
I see you.
