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| Finessing those modeling skills. |
This summer has been busy, to say the least.
Up until last Wednesday, I was juggling two (and a half, if you consider writing for FlockU a job in the slightest) jobs: the first, an unpaid internship with an organization I can't disclose; the second, a barely paid food service job at a Jamba Juice-Bruegger's Bagels hybrid location.
Basically, I was working 55 hour weeks with only 20 hours of paid compensation. Let's just say happy hours became less frequent and more stressful on my wallet.
But besides my lack of free time (and lack of financial stability), so many good things happened to me this summer.
First, I let go of some toxic people in my life. Well, one toxic person. He and I had a complicated history: we started off as acquaintances who met through some mutual friends, developed some feelings for each other (he had feels first; it took me a while to catch up romantically), made out a few times, and then slowly everything about our relationship started deteriorating.
We never dated. In the beginning, he wanted to date, but I was almost four hours away and didn't want the commitment. But the feelings stuck around. We texted almost all day, every day. We told each other everything. But slowly, towards the beginning of spring, we drifted apart.
He stopped caring as much about seeing me. We had fights over the stupidest of things, like that one time I sent him a dog picture thinking it would cheer him up. It didn't, and he made sure I knew that, to say the least. We stopped talking for a month, and when we picked back up, we just couldn't go back to the way things were before.
It took me a while to get over the hurt that I felt. For almost a year, I had slowly been attaching all of my self worth and self-confidence to him. Unless he complimented me, I felt like shit.
This summer, that nonsense ended. I reached the final straw on my efforts to see him, and decided to ignore all the drunk snapchats he sent me while I was back home, in his and my hometown.
Haven't talked to him since.
***
Then comes the next best part.
Not only did I cut a toxic person out, I stopped being afraid to let new people in.
The way it all happened was kind of funny. We met through a dating app. No, not Tinder; the app is called Coffee Meets Bagel, and it's about as cheesy as it sounds.
Joining it, I didn't expect anything of substance to result. Then he asked for my number, and texted me a few hours later asking to grab coffee on the upcoming Saturday.
Coffee and a cute boy (or as the app would refer to him, Bagel)? Hell f*cking yes.
We chatted for two hours over an iced raspberry latte and cafe au lait (which he pronounced "cafe ow late"), never running out of topics to discuss. In fact, I made up a story about needing to leave just so that we had things to talk about on our next date.
Assuming that'll still happen (still gathering the courage to ask him out).
Did I mention that was the first real date I'd been on? 21 years, and all I'd had under my belt before that were a few stupid bar meetups with guys whom I never spoke to again.
Take risks, friends. But first, connect his phone number to your Facebook contacts to make sure he's not a catfish ;).
***
Fast forward a few weeks, to when I attended a modeling open call at a local talent agency.
Me, a model?
Fugly eighth grade me would've never imagined it. Honestly, present-day me still can't really imagine it, even though I'm signing my agency contract tomorrow.
Sometimes you meet people along the way, even briefly, who change the course of your life forever. I never would've considered modeling had I not met my roommate's co-intern at a bar in early June. She was signed with the agency, and encouraged me to stop by her agency to apply to be a model.
Yeah, right. At the time, I thought she was just drunkenly handing out compliments and thought nothing of it.
A month later, however, she commented on my Instagram (presumably sober, this time) encouraging me again to apply to her agency. So, I thought, "what the heck?" and Ubered to the agency's open call a little over a week ago.
And here I am, in utter disbelief, declaring that as of tomorrow, I will be signed with a modeling agency.
Life is pretty weird sometimes. Step out of your comfort zone once in a while to make it even weirder.
***
Not last, and definitely not least, I move into my first house on two days from today.
That is, my first house without my parents in tow.
Did I mention four of my best friends are living with me?
I spent a lot of this summer grumbling over how much time I've wasted working, how much unnecessary drama occurred (mostly stemming from my former roommates), and how little money I have in my bank account compared to my paid-intern friends.
But this summer changed me in ways I never could've imagined. The confidence I've gained is something I wouldn't trade for the world, and the people I've met along the way have truly changed me for the better and opened my eyes to opportunities I wouldn't have explored otherwise.
You've got one week left to make this summer even more amazing, 2017. Try not to disappoint.
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