WEEK 33 - Done Apologizing
You were never supposed to stay the same. Growth was always the point. And the woman you've become deserves to stop explaining herself.
By Jennifer Dirksen · Sheer Photography, Youngstown OH · Est. read time: 6 min
I want you to think about who you were at 22. Or 25. Or 28. Whatever version of yourself feels far enough away to be useful here.
Think about what she wore. What she tolerated. What she was afraid of. Who she was trying to be. How much energy she spent on being liked, being the version of herself that caused the least friction in the room.
Now look at who you are today.
Maybe you dress differently now… bolder, darker, more intentionally yourself. Maybe you've stopped tolerating things that younger you would have quietly absorbed for years. Maybe you speak more directly now, take up more space, care significantly less about whether everyone in the room approves of you.
Maybe you love differently. Want differently. Move through the world differently.
Maybe younger you would look at the woman you've become and not quite recognize her.
Good!!!
That's not something that happened to you. That's something you did. That's not loss. That's arrival. And instead of asking what happened to me… the answer is two words: I happened.
"You weren't supposed to stay the woman you were at 22. She was the beginning. You are what she was becoming."
The pressure to stay the same.
Here's something nobody talks about clearly enough: people are uncomfortable when you change.
Not all people. Not always. But often enough that most women have felt it… the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) pressure from the people around them to remain recognizable. To stay the version of themselves that everyone has already adjusted to. To not suddenly want different things or speak differently or draw different boundaries or become someone who surprises them.
Because when you change, it requires the people around you to change too. To update their understanding of who you are. To make room for a version of you that doesn't fit the mold they've gotten comfortable with.
And that's inconvenient for them.
So the message (delivered in a hundred small ways) is: stay where you were. stay who you were. don't make this complicated.
And a lot of women listen. They shrink back into the familiar shape. They apologize for the ways they've grown. They perform the old version of themselves to keep the peace, while the new version (the real one, the one that's been slowly, quietly becoming for years) waits.
We're done making the new version wait. 🖤
What younger you didn't know yet.
She was doing her best. I want to say that first because this isn't about criticizing her.
But younger you was also carrying things she didn't know she was carrying. Beliefs about who she was supposed to be. Fears about what would happen if she took up too much space. Patterns she'd inherited from the women before her (about what love looks like, what a woman's role is, what she's allowed to want) that she hadn't examined yet because she didn't know she could.
She was people-pleasing in ways she called consideration. She was shrinking in ways she called humility. She was staying quiet in ways she called keeping the peace.
She was doing the best she could with what she had.
And then life happened. And the years happened. And the hard things happened. And somewhere in the middle of all of it (the losses and the pivots and the relationships and the moments you weren't sure you'd survive) you started to see through the patterns. To question the beliefs. To shed the versions of yourself that were never really yours to begin with.
That process is not something to apologize for. It's the whole point.
The woman you've become.
Let me describe her. You tell me if I'm close.
She wears what she wants now… not what's appropriate or acceptable or what won't cause a comment. She's found her signature. Her dark lip or her gold jewelry or her particular way of carrying herself that says I know who I am without saying a word.
She says NO now. Not perfectly, not always without the residual guilt, but more than she used to. She's learned that her no is a complete sentence and that protecting her energy is not selfishness.
She's stopped explaining herself to people who aren't going to understand anyway. Stopped shrinking in conversations to make other people more comfortable. Stopped going to every argument she's invited to.
She wants different things now than she did at 25. Deeper things. More honest things. Things that are actually hers rather than things she was told she should want.
She's been through enough to trust herself — not completely, not without the occasional doubt spiral, but more than before. She has evidence now. Evidence that she can handle hard things. That she is more resilient than she knew. That the things that were supposed to break her didn't.
She is not the woman younger you imagined becoming. She is better. More real. More fully herself than any version that came before.
"She is not who younger you imagined becoming. She is what younger you was quietly working toward… without knowing it yet."
I happened.
I want to sit with those two words for a second because I think they're the most important thing in this blog.
I happened.
Not life happened to me. Not circumstances happened to me. Not other people's choices, other people's needs, other people's ideas of who I should be happened to me.
I happened. My choices. My growth. My willingness to keep becoming even when it was uncomfortable. Even when it required disappointing people. Even when the new version of me didn't fit neatly into the life the old version had built.
The woman you are today is not an accident. She is not a deviation from who you were supposed to be. She is the result of years of living and learning and losing things and finding things and slowly, imperfectly, courageously choosing yourself over and over again even when it didn't feel like courage at the time.
You don't owe anyone an apology for that.
Not for the ways you've changed. Not for the things you've stopped tolerating. Not for the desires that shifted or the boundaries you finally drew or the version of yourself that surprised everyone… including you.
You happened. Own it. 🖤
What this month has been about.
We started September with a simple premise: we're done apologizing.
Done apologizing for taking up space. Done apologizing for our desire. Done apologizing for wanting more than motherhood. And now, done apologizing for becoming someone our younger selves wouldn't recognize.
Because all of it comes down to the same thing: you are a woman in the middle of becoming. Not finished. Not arrived. Not the polished, final version of yourself.
But more fully yourself than you have ever been. And moving (imperfectly) toward more.
That's not something to explain. That's not something to justify. That's not something to make smaller so it's easier for everyone around you to hold.
That's something to celebrate.
What a boudoir session looks like at this point in your story.
Here's what I've noticed after a decade of doing this: The women who walk into Sheer and cry the hardest at their reveals are almost never crying because they look beautiful. They're crying because they see themselves clearly and what they see is not the woman they used to be. It's the woman they've become.
And she's extraordinary.
Not despite everything she's been through. Because of it. The life in her face. The way she holds herself. The particular quality of her presence that only comes from having lived enough to stop performing and start inhabiting.
That's what a boudoir session captures when it's done right. Not just how you look in this moment. Who you've become. The specific, irreplaceable, completely-yours version of you that exists at this exact point in your story.
Younger you couldn't have given me these photos. She wasn't here yet.
You are. And she is worth every single frame. 🖤
The investment is smaller than another year of waiting.
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