After blogging M’s photos this past Friday, she sent me this amazing email about her experience. I had to share it with you. See M’s boudoir photos from Jamaica here.
Thank you M for opening up your heart to me to share such an intimate and personal story. You’re an amazing woman and I am truly lucky just to have met you.
Hi Courtney,
After seeing the pictures on the blog and having been through that amazing experience, I wanted to share something with you about why it was such an out of character thing for me to do and why I couldn’t be happier that I went through with it!!!
20 years ago on April 11th, one month before my 8th birthday, I was outside playing with the kids in my neighborhood when I heard my sister yell for me from our house. I remember it like it was yesterday – I asked if I could bring my friends and couldn’t understand why they weren’t allowed to come. We were living with our grandparents at that time and I couldn’t remember a single moment when my grandparents wouldn’t let my friends come over… So I ran home and pouted the whole way there.
When I made it in the house, it took no time at all to realize something was wrong. My grandpa sat me down and tried to explain to me that our mother had committed suicide. Being 7 years old, I didn’t understand, couldn’t process the concept and all I could think to ask was “Is she going to be okay”. After having just lost a child, our grandparents had to sit there, pretending to be strong, trying to reassure two little girls that everything was going to be alright. And they were right. Eventually, everything was alright.
After that, I grew up fast, too fast for my own good and it caused me to become very quiet & reserved. It has always been hard for me to just let loose and be carefree and my self esteem is something that I’ve always struggled with. Lots of personality traits that don’t mix well with something like a boudoir shoot. =)
However, seeing myself in those pictures and actually finding the confidence to take pictures in lingerie and in a bathing suit out in the ocean in FRONT of people was so out of character and so exhilarating all at the same time. It brought out a confidence in me that I didn’t realize was in there.
You are right, every woman deserves to feel beautiful and you have such an incredible way of capturing that beauty. It was a self esteem boost that I really needed and now I just can’t wait to be able to do it again one day!
Thanks again for such an awesome experience and for pictures that I will treasure forever. You are such an amazing woman and I will be forever grateful that God put you in my path. =)
Love, M
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by courtney