by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
In the past, I used to visit New York City about once a quarter. It was the closest I could get to visiting Seoul and I was always a lot of fun. I love the city’s energy and visiting — and daydreaming about living there — was always a great way to stir my creative juices.
But, my financial situation has changed for the worst and I just can’t afford to go anymore. Yet that doesn’t stop me from dreaming about maybe one day falling into the money necessary to buy the equipment needed to become a fashion photographer and move to NYC to see if I could pull of such a hat trick. Of course, that’s being exceedingly delusional — I’m probably simply too old to start a successful fashion photographer career.
I can have all the talent in the world, but I’m old enough to know that simply having native talent isn’t enough. It takes time to “come out of nowhere” and I simply don’t have that much time left on the planet to get what I want. And, even if I “got what I wanted” the context would not be wanted I wanted.
Instead of, “Wow, this cool new fashion photographer is making building a career in NYC,” it would be, “Jesus Christ, this old guy thinks he can have a career in fashion photography.”
Whenever I think like this — which is often — I mope. Then I am reminded that my life is extremely quirky and ironic. And I’m a notorious late bloomer. So, allow myself to be delusional and think that maybe, just maybe things will break my way and I’ll be able to live the dream of both being a successful novelist and a successful fashion photographer.
I am well aware of how delusional that is, coming from someone with no career and pushing 50. But one man’s delusion is another man’s dream. People can be so cruel.
But the thing about it is, while there’s life, there’s hope. You have to believe in yourself. You never know when something unexpected might change everything and put you in a far better position than you might otherwise think possible.
Meanwhile. I miss New York City. I hope to live there full time one day before I drop dead. Though, obviously, my best bet — given my personality — would be to move to LA instead and try my luck there. But I really do love NYC.
