Texas’ 35 feels like Mad Max Fury Road (which I have never seen and am just speculating, but I assume is true)
How to bbq your nervous system, CenTex style.
I went back home to the Midwest for Nana’s 92nd birthday, came back to a whirlwind of styling and modeling work that has kept me on the road.
Specifically 35, if you’re in the Dallas, Austin, San Antonio area, you get exactly what I mean when I say it absolutely annihilates my nervous system because it is the legitimate Wild West of highways.
Not once, but TWICE this week, I’ve had two separate people in two separate locations run across a 3 lane highway where cars (and pickup trucks stacked with couches 5-7 high) are, without any exaggeration, going 85-110mph, jump up onto the concrete median with a strange look of far away exhilaration in their face.
The way I had to lock my brakes to not hit this, what I can only assume is a very unwell person, and now I need to bring my car in to have the brakes checked. I would not be surprised if I need new pads and rotors.
I cannot get the last person’s face out of my mind. 15’ closer and I would have absolutely hit them. To see that once is enough, but twice in the same week? What is happening?
And that’s just some of the milder antics while driving here.
I fucking HATE IT WITH MY WHOLE CORE.
Clearly, this is a very unenjoyable experience that makes the good parts of living here shrink and diminish. It’s not sustainable.
Life is so fast with little time to enjoy it because you’re constantly trying to self soothe your frazzled being.
We need a way out.
A way out requires funding.
By this point in my life I know I am like kryptonite to traditional employment and have only ever worked for myself or freelanced. I’m resourceful and flexible by necessity, they can sniff out this neurodivergent brain like “Mmm, this one is a little….off. No thank you.”
Out of survival, creating a career for myself is all I have ever known, and while I’d love the luxury of a W2 job, it is well outside of my neuro pathways to endure such stability.
For years I have been waiting on “what’s next” after selling our farm. I’ve tried desperately to cling to careers I’ve done in the past only for them to fizzle out or leave me a burnt out shell of myself.
Every meditation or card pull is the same- you’re on a new path, something you have not done before. Stop trying to repeat what has already been done, you’ve mastered that already.
The thing which has bubbled up for me in the last few years is rekindling personal style, seasonal color analysis and Kibbe IDs.
Fashion and style were a huge part of my life, so much I went to school for it, tried my hand at personal styling out of college during the Great Recession when there were no jobs and I had to make one (why is this all feeling so familiar?! Oh wait…) only to leave it to the wayside when opening my interior design & home boutique with my mom. That was a hard adjustment just like it’s currently hard to not view every career through the lens of “home”.
I’ve been studying seasonal color analysis for years and have offered it as a digital service for the last year or so but always felt like I needed more formal education. I love to learn and thrive on being a student, forever a sponge for random knowledge.
I bit the bullet and enrolled in a formal course only to discover that years of art school coupled with fashion and self learning put me well above a baseline. I already knew everything being taught, which was a huge surprise. I always feel behind, like I could know more, or that everyone is more experienced than me.
Dunning Kruger Effect …. in effect.
Since modeling and styling are my main money makers in Austin, I know it’ll take a while to build back up this momentum in Chicago so I need a backup that doesn’t require me to be on location.
Virtual color analysis it is!
It took me a long time to rectify wanting to make “real art” as a career vs a creative career that allows my brain the space it needs to not shrivel up and die, which in turn leaves energy to create art that is not reliant upon consumption or monetization.
To have a creative career that connects with people rather than strictly selling goods.
Color analysis does that for me and in turn empowers people to feel at home in their skin.
When we feel good, we DO good.
With that said I will be adding more style-focused content as it’s something I love and a form of art I love and want to rekindle from the viewpoint of being 42 with much more richly lived experience than 24.
I’m still (and always) figuring out how it’ll look and feel here.
The OG blog days of the 10s where we weren’t constantly bombarded with daily posts were really inspiring.
A few posts a month surveying style, art, culture, home with a handful of interesting images that tell a story without spoon feeding it all, leaving space to think and digest rather that hitting you with another post.
Education without the superiority.
Anyway, that’s where I’d like to head with all this.
Now I need to get ready to endure another drive on 35. Wish me luck.
Drive safe out there! Jeez!
I love that you're on a constant quest for learning and information and I hope this new quest gives you exactly what you're looking for.
PS: That styling photo is really awesome. I bet that's a dream job for someone else out there. How neat!