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