No Validation Required
I was sitting in the park one day, on a beautiful April day in DC. One of those rare ones that feels like a cosmic accident in your favor. Seventy degrees after a week of forty, the sun warm and drunk in the sky. People watching is a harmless addiction of mine. The whole city was out like ants under a microscope. Stretching. Flirting. Jogging like they had sponsors.
It took maybe ten minutes before the universe decided to test my serenity. And it always starts with a random guy, doesn’t it? This one held a pizza box, masked up like it was 2020 again. Sunglasses on. Cargo shorts. The kind of man who probably yells at his dog every day. As he passed me, just me minding my own oversized business, he looked right at me and said, “You need to find yourself a gym, fat motherfucker.”
Such poetry. Not even a hello.
My first instinct? Shock. Sadness, maybe. For about three seconds I was twelve again, walking down a school hallway with evil kids hurling evil words. But by the time he’d gotten twenty feet away, still carrying that greasy pizza, I smiled. Genuinely. Not the fake corporate smile I use when someone tells me they "don’t usually like having their picture taken" at the start of a 2 hour headshot session. No, this was a real smile. Because this pizza prophet? He doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know my medical history, my worth, or my monthly expenses. He doesn’t know the people who love me. And most importantly, he’s not the narrator of my story.
So I let it go. I discarded it like a half eaten bagel with bird shit on it. Something I wouldn’t even hand to a duck. Unless, I really hated that duck. I'll tell you one thing - I've never met a duck I liked.
And here's the beautiful part. It felt good. Freeing, even. Like I’d just unhooked a barbed hook from my chest. I could’ve responded with violence. Could’ve spiraled into a little self loathing. But I didn’t. I laughed. Because the truth is, you start to win when you realize you don’t need anyone’s validation but your own.
The old saying goes, “hurt people hurt people.” And it’s not wrong. Maybe I reminded him of someone. Maybe his life is a collapsing soufflé of unprocessed rage and regret. Maybe he hates fat people because it’s easier than hating himself. Doesn’t matter. He’s not following me home. And more importantly, neither is his opinion.
I'm still sitting on that same park bench, by the way. And now that this sentence is over, he’s gone. Poof. Like a fart in the wind. So where does all this tie into boudoir?
Boudoir, in my opinion, is the art of reclaiming your body from the judgments of others. It’s a rebellion. A middle finger with lace gloves, painted nails and a gold bracelet. It’s choosing to exist fully and beautifully in your skin. Not later. Not when you hit a goal weight. But now. In this moment.
Mindfulness teaches us that the only moment that matters is the one we’re in. The past? Gone. The future? A hallucination. The present? That’s where you live, baby. And stoicism, good old fashioned wisdom, tells us that we don’t control what others do or say. Only how we respond.
So you come into a boudoir session not for the camera. Not for the curated likes or double taps. You come in for yourself. You show up, and you say, this is who I am, and I am enough. And maybe, just maybe, you leave that session the way I left that bench. Lighter. Freer. And entirely uninterested in whatever some pizza holding stranger has to say.
You only live once. Don't forget to love yourself while you do it.
-Marvin
