What do you aspire to be?

This is not an aspirational blog. It is a tiny slice of my own reality. Instead of posing in front of yellow taxis on a busy street with tousled hair and stiletto heels, I take photos in front of the same wall of my house, doing the same poses, wearing the clothes I actually wore that day, because that is what I’m comfortable with. Instead of a photographer boyfriend with a fancy DSLR, I use the self-timer of a point-and-shoot digital camera, perched atop of a hand-me-down tripod.

Everything I’m wearing here is either hand-me-down or thrifted. The sweater is from an old roommate, and I cut up an old concert t-shirt (Of Montreal, they’re really good live) to sew on the back. The sunflower dress is thrifted and I bought the sneakers at Winners in high school and haven’t worn them since then. It’s scary that I’m now old enough to self-reference the styles of my youth.

We consume things because we want to be like them. It’s why we envy Jane Aldridge from Sea of Shoes for her seemingly endless designer footwear collection. It’s also why we purchase products that are targeted towards us without fail – because if we buy the product then perhaps we will transform into the model in the advertisement. It’s ridiculous how badly we want to escape our own lives to become someone else. If we can just stand our ground and tell our own stories with pride, we will be able to shake off this dusting of aspiration that has infiltrated the clothes we wear, the food we prepare and the pictures we post on Instagram. No one else is ever going to speak for you, so when you speak up, don’t do so using someone else’s voice.