After my husband died, I didn’t let anyone come close to me or touch me for 12 years… until a stranger started asking me for more and more daring photos every single day.small By the time I finally understood what he was really using me for, it already felt too late…

Not pretending.

Just free.

For the first time, I wasn’t standing there because a man demanded something from me.

I was there because I wanted to be.

Not frightened.

Not dependent.

Not desperate for approval.

But as a woman who had finally understood that her body was not something to be ashamed of, her age was not an ending, and her heart could still love.

When Michael showed me the portrait, my eyes filled with tears.

“That’s really me?”

He smiled.

“That’s how I see you.”

A year later, Michael and I were still together.

And sometimes I still think about that first  photograph I took alone in my bedroom.

Photographic & Digital Arts

 

For months, I thought it had ruined my life.

Now I understand something completely different.

That photograph was simply the moment I dared to ask myself:

“What if my life isn’t over yet?”

And today, I finally know the answer.

It wasn’t.