My Life In A Not-So-Nutshell

TW: sexual assault, rape. When I write about my experiences in pageantry, it’s usually because I’m able to relate them back to how they’ve done fucked me up in my mid-to-late twenties.  (I hope you laughed here... but in all seriousness...) Any pageant-retiree of the last 15-20 years probably knows what I’m talking about. I had a work conference last week. My first of many, I’m sure, but my first big-girl-I-actually-might-have-an-important-job-here-or-maybe-even-something-valuable-to-contribute work conference. And naturally I made plenty of mistakes at said conference, including talking too much, not listening enough, and tripping in the hotel lobby over my heels. Beauty and grace, Miss United States. I was also the only woman from the sales team present at this conference, not counting my boss. If you work in sales, you know that open bars are essentially a game, or a trick, rather. Can you keep your shit together in front of clients or prospects well enough to have a tipsy conversa

Tonight, I heard of the passing of former Miss USA 2019, Cheslie Kryst. To start, I want to send my deepest condolences to her family and loved ones.  Undoubtedly, this is an enormous loss for the entire pageant community, but just an enormous loss in general, as Cheslie was a person before she was a titleholder. She was not more or less worthy of love and belonging because she was Miss USA. She was worthy because she was a human being. This tragic loss got me thinking, again, about pageants (which, yes, I will continue to write about until I am blue in the face). It had me reflecting on how her death by suicide will forever change the way we look at women in pageantry. Not because all of us are suicidal, but because beauty, grandeur, and achievement still will never be able to mask the glaring dysfunction of the pageant world as a whole: achieve these standards or be in the never-ending rat race that is 'being the best' and the 'most beautiful.' I never knew Cheslie. I

  I was seven when I had my first panic attack. I remember it vividly; I was standing in mass, and we just finished saying the Our Father. I let go of a boy named Carter’s hand and felt extremely light-headed. I asked to use the restroom, and I walked to the back, closed the bathroom door, and remember breathing heavily, wondering what that sensation was. From that moment on, I coined myself as an “anxious person.” I began having regular panic attacks at the age of 20. For the last five years, I’ve spent most of my energy and time focusing on a loaded combination of how to prevent these attacks — being terrified for the next one, shaming myself for acquiring a Xanax prescription, shaming myself when utilizing said prescription, trying supplements, meditations, therapy modalities, and the list goes on. You name it, I have tried it. The minor exception being eating mushrooms in a forest with a shaman.  I just figured I’d have to live with this. I figured it’d be something that would stay

Crowns. Sashes. Heels. Swimsuit. Butt glue. Batons. Makeup. Hair. Nails. Spray tan. Eyelashes. Curtain call. Jazz shoes. Shiny lights. Photographers. Newspapers. TV. Platform. Interview. Smile. White strips. Perfection. Rinse. Repeat. I spent twelve years of my life competing in pageantry. And today, I'd like to formally resign my title as Miss Pageantry and exchange it for a title I find to be a bit more fitting. Today, I'll assume the title of Miss Fuck It. The following is my telling of why. I gained such invaluable experience from my days in pageantry. I learned (shockingly & ironically) how to be professional in tough situations, how to think on my feet, how to formulate opinions on intense issues at a young age and adjust those opinions as I grew, how to tell people what I needed in a blatantly honest way (this usually applied to the lighting curator at the Adler Theater who organized the lighting placements for baton twirlers at Miss Iowa every year). I learn

God, what a completely f*cked time, right? Anyway, hi. How are you today? I feel like total shit. I barely left my bed. I ate approximately 456 grams of carbohydrates in the form of Reese’s peanut butter eggs, a burrito, and bread my mom made the other day.  Oh, shit. I'm so sorry.  Not the inspiration you were hoping for?  You know, I'm a recovering pessimist. I grew up having an attitude that made both my baton coach and my parents probably want to murder me. I once threw my baton so hard at the studio wall I got kicked out of baton class. I was 12. I had virtually no confidence growing up. Idiots in middle school made jokes and I believed those jokes and wound up with the self-esteem of what I imagine a literal fucking turtle having. I have a point here, I swear. As my confidence developed and years of traumatic experiences ensued, I told myself I probably had two choices in this life: I could continue to be a pessimistic nightmare and choose to believe

There's this cover of John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads" performed by a female group called Mountain Man. I can't tell you why, maybe it's the way the chords are strung together or how beautiful their voices sound together, but this version, this one in particular, always makes me cry. It's just that good. (And now you know that my scoring system for how great I think a song is includes its ability to make me cry... listen, we've all got our flaws here, folks). This version of this tune makes me feel this sort of sentimental, nostalgic puzzle-like feeling. You ever felt like that? Like you're trying to piece together parts of your past, and figure out just exactly how X and Y met to get you to Z? Or maybe how Q and R met to get you to S which is a whole other fucked up land of its own because no one actually makes it to Z in this lifetime, right? Except when you like, I dunno, die? I didn't recognize I was grieving until I said