First, a quick callback to last month’s post about my experience at DiaTipo in São Paulo is purely for the sake of my vanity. The photographer covering the event got this absolute glamor shot of me that is one of the rare photos of myself that I actually enjoy.
The truth is, I’ve been grappling with self-confidence about the way I look for the last couple of years, so I don’t have a lot of documentation that I feel great about. It hasn’t been about age, surprisingly. I actually think I’ve sailed into my 50s more successfully than I had expected, all things considered. But I put on just enough weight during the Covid years to make me feel really uncomfortable in my body, not feeling or looking quite like I have always pictured myself. There is some vanity to that certainly, but a lot of it is just the everyday dysmorphia of not feeling like myself, and it taking far too long to return to a version that once again felt right.
That weird feeling about how I see myself even got in the way of what had become an annual tradition of taking self-portraits on New Year’s Day every year, to mark the passing of time. I returned that tradition this year, since my sense of self has been on the upswing once again.
