Hello, and welcome to Zella Maybe 2.0! Or, as you may have seen on Instagram, Definitely Zella (although that would require a domain change and be a pain, so this site will likely stay Zella Maybe for the moment).

It’s been nearly a year since I’ve posted here, and a lot can change in the amount of time, particularly in the COVID-19 era. For starters, I’m not wearing a lot of vintage these days, although I am wearing quite a few costumes, and some things that I’ve always been interested in but haven’t talked about much here (anime, writing, dancing) have started to play a much larger role in my life. And I feel like that’s something that I should talk about, if only because I’ve defined myself so much by my vintage aesthetic that moving away from it might seem like more of a personality change than a change of clothes.

I can be your hero, baby. (Cosplaying as Nana Shimura from My Hero Academia; photo by Afrodyte Charlotte)

Here some of the ways that I’ve changed in the past year:

I’m not so scared of attention anymore. Not that I, person who has always liked to dress up and take pictures of herself, hated attention before, but I had to be in control of that attention to feel safe. I would never tell another woman that she deserved to be catcalled or assaulted because she acted or dressed provocatively, but I think I’d internalized it enough to believe that calling the “wrong” kind of attention to myself was dangerous. These days, though, I spend a lot of time with my ass hanging out. Sometimes I’m even dancing, and often men will try to hit on me. I still don’t always know how to handle that last bit, but I’m also at a place in my life where I’m not going to let it stop me from wearing or doing what I want.
I’m more patient with myself. When I first started dancing, I would get intensely frustrated with myself any time I made a mistake. It can take me a long time to learn choreography, and I felt like such an idiot for flubbing steps or needing to see certain moves over and over again. I’m a little faster at that now, but I’m also able to roll with it when I make a mistake and keep going, because I understand that at some point I will get it. And that’s transferred over to other areas of my life as well - an understanding that while the process of learning something might be difficult, if I stick with it I will see results.
I’m more in control of my life. It’s hard to be in your 30s and not know what you want out of life. It’s even harder when you’re engaged to someone who knows exactly what they want, and what they want is to settle down into a picture perfect, white picket fence kind of life, and even though everything inside of you is screaming “not this!” you can’t really come up with a reason not to do it so you just… go along with it. I did that for years, and I spent a long time thinking that there was something wrong with me because living a life where I made no substantial choices made me feel dead inside. I don’t feel that way anymore, and it’s not just because I’ve got more hobbies and more friends - it’s because I’m the one who is in charge of my life. Are all of my decisions the best ones? Indeed they are not! But they’re my decisions, which makes it so much easier to live with them.
My life is fuller and richer. I used to go to bed early or spend the entire weekend on the couch because I just didn’t have anything better to do, and that isn’t a thing that happens anymore. Between an energetic, outgoing boyfriend who wants to go EVERYWHERE and do EVERYTHING; an expanding friend group, several of whom like to hang out regularly; writing a movie (did I mention I wrote a movie? I wrote a movie); spending time with my cat (did I mention I got a cat? I got a cat); working on my cosplay or attending events; working out; and doing all the normal day to day stuff like eating, sleeping, cleaning, and working, sometimes I actually feel a little overstretched. Figuring out how to balance all of those different things is a challenge, but knowing that I have great people around me, fun and engaging things to look forward to, and interesting projects to work on have made me feel fulfilled in a way that I don’t think I ever have before.

That’s a lot! I don’t want to misrepresent this past year - there have also been some VERY down periods over the last 12 months, and I’ve realized that I have some issues with anger and trauma that I still need to work through, probably with the help of a therapist. But overall I would say that 2021 has been a year of tremendous growth for me, and I guess it’s only natural that there should be some growing pains.

The people in the world who can smile are always the strongest.

Alright, so, having spilled a few hundred words on all of the changes in my life and how I’m harder, better, faster, and stronger (thanks, Cialis!), here’s what it all means: I want to keep blogging, but the blog is going to change. I’m probably going to redesign my website to better reflect my current interests, and I’m not going to write about vintage anymore, or at least not very often. Don’t get me wrong, I still think it’s beautiful, but it doesn’t really feel like me anymore. I’ll still post about fashion, but it’s mostly going to be modern, and I’ll also be talking about cosplay, going to conventions, outdoor adventures, fitness, making movies… basically, everything that interests me right now.

While the age of blogging is largely in the past, I’m not cool enough to have a substack and TikTok and Instagram just aren’t doing it for me in terms of giving me a place to really put my thoughts out into the world. And also sometimes I apply for press passes for conventions, so having an up-to-date website helps with that.