This year I applied to be in the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. My sister girlfriend from Texas had told me about the opportunity and initially I dragged my feet. Victoria’s Secret? Their not going to pick someone like me.
I’m short.
A webcam model (and you have to be signed to IMG, people hate sex workers so theirs just no way – it would wreck the brand).
But also, and this sounds horrible. I’m a snob about the wings.
See I once made my own pair of Victoria’s Secret wings. They were big and beautiful but the structure wasn’t right. At the end I was living with a friend from Victoria’s Secret who had opened her home up to me after the passing of my little brother and living my life in transition.
I remember driving down the highway and crying out to God – I knew I needed a different life, there had been a lot of dark mental history in my family and I needed to see if there was a way out of this prison, a missing key. Not to abandon the remaining members of my family, but to find the key to get us all out.
Now that I’m writing this years later I’m realizing that everyone has to be their own key. Be their own key or be forged into one.
As I was driving in my car I heard a response “Austin.” And that is where my journey began. I packed everything I had in my car, the day I left I had a private last breakfast with my mom.
Before I left my Victoria’s Secret family had a going away party for me and using the gifts from my mom, Victoria’s Secret, and my relatives I not only bought new tires for my car – I also was able to travel from Maryland to Texas only paying $30 in gas.
I wish I could say that my journey ended in happiness there. But that’s where my sparkles were crushed more. However I always say that there is a special healing in Texas because that’s where my soul woke up inside me.
In Texas is where I had my spiritual awakening.
And as I moved from Texas to Florida I also transferred my job working from one Victoria’s Secret store to the next.
I’ve spiritually added to my wings at every destination that I’ve lived.
And what I’ve learned the hard way – in pain, in beauty, and in many nights alone.
The wings of every woman is her spirit.
And as for the Victoria’s Secret fashion show? Well my submission was denied.
But that’s okay because there is a real life angel inside of me.
