Reality Versus Me

Sezane bodysuit
Linjer rings (c/o) (similar)
Daisy London earrings (c/o)
Location: Osborne Village – Winnipeg, Manitoba

It’s been at least two years, probably three, since I swore off dressing up just to take outfit photos. After years of staging elaborate photoshoots that captured a theme or told a story, usually with my partner-in-crime, Lyndi, by my side, I wanted to get back to where I started with Coco & Vera. My goal, in the early days, was simple. I wanted to share, at least to some degree, the reality of how I dressed.

At the time, it was an easy choice to make, because my reality was fabulous. I won’t deny or diminish that fact. A couple of weeks ago, I saw an old friend with whom I haven’t been close in a very long time. They asked me a question that I rarely hear these days, because I’ve been so vocal about where I stand on the subject for so long: “Do you want kids?”

I answered honestly, without shame, as I always do. And I also answered without rolling my eyes, which I can’t always manage. I recognised the question as a genuine, and fairly vulnerable, if misguided one. Unfortunately, this friend could not wrap their mind around the fact that I said no, no matter how logical and well-reasoned my explanation. And it was because they themselves can’t fathom a life without children, the same way that I can’t fathom one with them. I stopped short – but just short – of saying, “Do you have any idea how wonderful my life was, before the pandemic?” It was. I travelled the world. I wore impractical, extravagantly expensive shoes. If I wanted to, I could go out every night of the week. Kids would only get in the way.

“Ordinary life does not interest me.”
– Anais Nin

Now, I can’t stop thinking about it. I’ve become almost self-conscious about how lucky I was, what a truly rarified existence I lived up until mid-March of 2020. My reality was one that most people can only dream of… and exactly the one that I dreamt of growing up. Who wouldn’t want to share outfits from a life like that?

The fact is, I’m still incredibly lucky. While so many people have lost their jobs or seen their income reduced by pandemic restrictions, I’ve worked non-stop, with my income intact. I’m privileged to be able to work from home and maintain social distance at all times. But that luck means that most of my life now takes place between my bedroom and my living room. (With occasional stops in my office, the commute between the two is a sometimes daunting ten metres.) When I see people, it’s on a screen. As realities go, it’s uninspiring at best. While I’m more fortunate than most, I want better for all of us. Getting the best of a bad lot doesn’t cut it.

…and what I want doesn’t matter. The reality is, until many more people are vaccinated, very little will change. But there’s a way to get some of it back. For some reason, a conversation about not having kids made me realise that. If I can’t have real fabulousness, I can pretend. I can go back to staging photoshoots so that I feel, at least momentarily, like I’m living that wonderful life.

When people talk about Instagram versus reality, they’re pointing out, rightly, that everything that appears on social media is, to some degree, staged. That’s true. I shared a behind the scenes snapshot among these photos so you can all see a little of the reality of getting these photos. (Stuffed bunny included.) But there’s a difference between staging a walk down the street in jeans and a t-shirt and putting on a gown.

Most of my staged shoots involved gowns. Designer dresses at a minimum. I wore them only for photos. Practicality didn’t allow for anything else. But just because our time together was brief doesn’t mean I didn’t appreciate it. And it came with no expectation that anyone believe that I spend my life in ball gowns. Maybe that’s how it looked, but I find it hard to believe anyone with moderate critical thinking abilities wouldn’t see that I simply made choices about what parts of my life to show. Those photos made me feel good. At this point, that’s all I want – to do things that make me feel good in a reality where my options for feeling good are limited.

I miss my former life. But it’s finally occured to me that there is a way to recapture it, at least visually, until I can recapture it in reality. I don’t know if that means my collection of gowns is making a comeback. What it does mean is I’m not married to the idea of presenting reality when my reality doesn’t fulfill me. I suspect very few people are feeling truly fulfilled at the moment. But I’ve never met a problem that I didn’t want to find a solution for… and if the solution to this one is dressing way up to go nowhere, then I’ll take it, reality be damned.

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