There is a fine line between vanity and confidence. Both propel you into the direction you need to go to meet your destiny but the path that you take will be entirely different. In one scenario you will be able to instill the same aura into all those in your presence. The other will catch on like a wildfire willing and able to destroy everything in it’s wake. Is it possible to have hints of one with dashes of the other? Only brief sprinklings. If you season too much you will lose the flavour and the purpose of the dish that it is you were making.

Vanity likes to tell you that you are the only in existence now, then and in the future who is capable of looking great and doing great things. It over inflates your ego to the point where you don’t even pay attention to your surroundings. You become this entity that people no longer enjoy but like an accident they can’t seem to tear away. Most people gather in close because deep inside of us we need them to have their day of reckoning. You know that moment in their life where they realize that they lives they destroyed they in fact needed and in the end the person that truly suffered was themselves. You know that moment that comes in every fairy tale that rewards good over evil? I grew up believing in those happy endings. Almost every film in Hollywood had them. Then all of a sudden Hollywood wanted to focus on these dark endings. I guess the more real endings. All of a sudden the magically wonder that was my childhood was poisoned with these electronics and the internet that taught us that we no longer needed to leave our house to fit in.

Confidence is knowing deep down inside that the message you want to share and the love you want to carry with you will outshine any negative aspect that can be thrown at you. I have no idea why it became so important to me to travel the Globe and meet other Pin-up sisters in our communities. I think it came from a place where I didn’t feel like I fit in. If I felt that way then there were others who did too and I owed it to myself and to them to unite us too.  I am a small town girl with big girl dreams and I am willing to put myself out there to achieve them. Maybe that might be stupidity but I try to do it in a very careful way. There is no denying the nerves I felt when I hit almost every road block during my first trip to Yuba. Flight cancelled. Layover in San Francisco. Red eye to Madison. Lost hotel reservations. 2 hour nap. 2 hour drive. Contest. Drive. Sleep. Flight. Why would I do this? Why wouldn’t I? Our World will continue to feel small and suffocating unless we take the leaps and bounds to make it better. How can we know what lays in wait for us if we stay within our own four walls. Well now I am talking proverbial four walls. Imagine how much smaller my World would feel if quarantine happened and I didn’t have my new US Pin-Up sisters to laugh with.

When you venture into these tight knit sisterhood’s you really have to keep the proper mind. In most of these gatherings they have been attending for years and years and years. These events are like family reunions in a sense and you are the second cousin from somebody’s dad second marriage on their mom’s side. Meaning it will become quite clear to all in the room what your intentions are. If you have come because you think you are God’s gift to Pin-Up and you came to take home some random title that means nothing to you but everything to them. Or did you come genuinely to broaden your horizons and take your skills to a whole new level and hopefully make some lifelong friends along the way. Vanity probably wouldn’t even allow you the experience that I carry so close to my heart. My shy confident heart is what kept me there absorbing all the greatness in the behind the scenes room instead of running in a panicked frenzy. It was like watching Pin-Up royalty get ready for a pageant. All these hand sewn dresses and matchy matchy perfections I was humbled by the sisterhood I witnessed. There were girls pinning hair, pinning dresses, practicing poses, practicing presence, having shots, sharing laughs and I just sat there thinking  what a great honour.

It is not up to me to decide who are hiding their vanity by appearing to be confident. It is one of the ugliest  emotions a human can wear. To witness those that exude this air while infecting young minds is more than just a mild annoyance. To keep my wits about me and to keep me sane I have distanced myself from those that see this as the be all end all way of being. You never need to blow out somebody’s candle to make yours burn bright nor is their ever an excuse to step on somebody to get to the next rung. Those type of people I have kept myself very far from. I don’t need a constant reminder of why it is. In this World that is as volatile as it is you have to take your warning shots for what they are a warning. Usually those that cover themselves in this vain aura only have enough capacity to look out for number one. In their eyes their is only room for them. They will crush all that get in there way to absorb all your light. A humble heart sees the joy in every moment as they appreciate the time spent. It is just as much about the journey as it is the outcome which is something we tend to always forget.