Back to the Root: Where I Am Now

In 2018, I wrote a tiny blog post announcing that I was coming back to writing.

I said I had finally defeated some of the fears and anxieties that were holding me back.

I said I wanted to use my blog to express myself freely, talk about what I believed in, and create whatever felt honest to me.

Reading that post now feels almost surreal.

So much has happened since then. So much of me has changed.

And somehow, underneath all of those changes, I can still recognize the person who wrote those words.

They were trying to return to themselves.

And honestly, I think that is exactly what I am doing again now.

What happened after 2021?

I created content on this website and across the internet for years. I wrote, took photos, filmed videos, shared opinions, documented my life, and tried to understand who I was becoming in public.

Then, somewhere around 2021, I stopped blogging.

I did not stop creating. If anything, I created more than ever.

I worked in social media. I developed campaigns. I created content for brands. I photographed people, products, events, and pieces of my own life. I started posting more frequently on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. I learned how to edit faster, create stronger hooks, follow trends, meet deadlines, and turn pieces of my life into content that could fit inside an algorithm.

But writing slowly disappeared.

There is something very different about writing a blog post compared to posting a Reel or a TikTok.

A short video asks you to get to the point quickly. A caption asks you to summarize. An algorithm asks you to keep people watching.

Writing asks you to sit with yourself.

It asks you to finish the thought.

And I think, for a while, I was afraid of what would happen if I actually sat down long enough to finish mine.

I am Cristina now

One of the biggest changes since my old blog is also the most obvious one.

I am Cristina.

I am a trans woman. I am 32 years old. I live by myself in North Miami with my cat, Pedro, who is both my baby and my tiny landlord.

My life looks very different from the one I imagined when I wrote that first blog post.

There were versions of me that I had to release. There were names, roles, expectations, relationships, and ideas about myself that stopped fitting. Some of that process was exciting. Some of it was painful. Some of it happened slowly, and some of it felt like my entire life changed overnight.

Transitioning has taught me that becoming yourself is not one big reveal.

It is hundreds of small decisions.

It is choosing the clothes that finally feel right. It is learning how you want to be seen. It is hearing your name and realizing it feels like home. It is looking at old photos with compassion instead of embarrassment. It is understanding that the person you were before was not fake. They were surviving with the language and possibilities they had at the time.

I do not hate the person who started this blog.

I am grateful to them.

They brought me here.

I became an esthetician

Since I last wrote consistently, beauty has become much more than something I enjoyed.

I became a licensed esthetician.

That journey gave me a new way to understand skincare, makeup, confidence, and the relationship people have with their faces.

Before becoming licensed, I already loved products.

I loved testing formulas, looking at textures, studying finishes, and figuring out what made makeup sit beautifully on the skin.

Esthetics taught me to look underneath all of that.

It taught me about the skin barrier, inflammation, hydration, hormones, exfoliation, treatments, contraindications, and the importance of asking better questions before recommending a product.

It also made me realize how emotional skincare can be.

When someone sits in front of you and says they hate their acne, their texture, their facial hair, their pigmentation, or the changes happening to their skin, they are not always asking only for a product recommendation.

Sometimes, they are asking whether they are still worthy of care.

That is one of the reasons Roequite Skin became so important to me. “Roequite” comes from reversing the words te quiero—I love you.

Because that is what skincare should feel like.

Not punishment. Not shame. Not a desperate attempt to erase yourself.

Care.

I built a life around beauty and creativity

Over the last few years, I have worked in beauty retail, social media, content creation, photography, skincare, and brand partnerships.

Sometimes all at the same time, because apparently I enjoy having twelve tabs open in my brain.

I have created beauty reviews, skincare education, tutorials, campaign content, event coverage, interviews, photography projects, and videos about my life as a trans woman.

I have worked behind the scenes and in front of the camera. I have helped brands communicate. I have helped people feel comfortable in photographs. I have helped clients understand their skin. I have helped customers find products that make them feel a little more confident walking out of a beauty store.

I have also learned how easily creativity can become labor.

When you create content professionally, you start thinking about deadlines, views, affiliate links, deliverables, revisions, retention, SEO, and whether a video performed well enough to justify the hours you spent making it.

None of those things are bad.

I want this work to support me.

I want to grow my platforms.

I want to build a real business from my creativity.

But I do not want to lose myself while doing it.

That is part of why I am writing again.

I found my photography again

Recently, I found an old hard drive filled with photographs I had taken between 2010 and 2017 or 2018.

Seeing those images reminded me of something I had almost forgotten.

I have always been a photographer.

Before I knew how to call it a brand, a service, or a career, I was already documenting people. I was already paying attention to small expressions, friendships, movement, color, and the moments people usually forget.

I realized that so many of the photographs I took were not just “content.”

They were proof.

Proof that we were there.

Proof that we loved each other.

Proof that we were young, confused, creative, alive, and trying to figure everything out.

That discovery changed how I want to approach photography now.

I do not only want to create perfect images.

I want to create images that help people remember themselves.

I have also been depressed

This is the part that is harder to package into something beautiful.

I have been depressed recently.

For a while, I felt like I was disappearing inside my own life.

I could still post. I could still go to work. I could still answer some messages, meet certain deadlines, and look functional from the outside.

But internally, I was tired.

I isolated myself.

I stayed inside.

I avoided people I loved.

I struggled to answer texts because every reply felt like another thing I was failing to do correctly.

Depression has a strange way of convincing you that you need to become better before you are allowed to rejoin your own life.

You tell yourself you will call people when you feel happier.

You will clean when you have more energy.

You will create when you feel inspired.

You will show your face when you look more like yourself again.

And then time keeps moving.

I am not writing this because everything is suddenly perfect.

It is not.

I am writing this because I am beginning to feel a little better.

I am starting to look around my life and recognize pieces of myself again. I am trying to return to routines that make me feel connected. I am trying to stop waiting until I am completely healed before I allow myself to participate.

Writing this is part of that participation.

I understand community differently now

When I first started blogging, I thought sharing online meant showing people what I was doing.

Now, I think it means letting people understand why it matters to me.

There are people who follow me because they saw one makeup tutorial, one product review, one funny video, one transition post, or one moment from my life.

And I am grateful for every person who decides to stay.

But social media can sometimes create the illusion that you know someone because you recognize their face.

You see what they bought, where they went, what they wore, what product they used, or what happened in a thirty-second clip.

You do not always get to see what they were thinking afterward.

This blog is where I want to share that part.

The thoughts that do not fit inside a caption.

The opinions that need more than sixty seconds.

The stories that deserve context.

The moments that are not polished enough for Instagram but are still meaningful.

The questions I am still trying to answer.

I do not want to build only an audience.

I want to build a community of people who care about beauty, creativity, identity, culture, photography, softness, and what it means to keep becoming yourself.

I want to be more honest online

Authenticity is a word that gets used constantly online, usually right before someone tries to sell you something.

But I think authenticity is less about sharing everything and more about sharing from a place that is true.

I do not need to publish every painful detail of my life to prove that I am real.

I also do not want to pretend that my life is always glamorous, productive, or easy.

Sometimes I am a beauty creator attending an event, filming a campaign, and feeling gorgeous.

Sometimes I am sitting alone in my apartment with Pedro, feeling overwhelmed by laundry and unanswered messages.

Sometimes I am confident.

Sometimes I am scared.

Sometimes I feel completely connected to the person I have become.

Sometimes I am still grieving people and versions of my life that no longer exist.

Both things can be true.

That is the kind of honesty I want this space to hold.

What this blog will become

I want this blog to be a home for all the parts of my work and life that belong together, even when the internet tells us to choose one niche.

I want to write about skincare from the perspective of a licensed esthetician.

I want to review beauty products with more depth than a one-minute video allows.

I want to talk about makeup as technique, identity, creativity, and play.

I want to share photography, behind-the-scenes stories, and the memories attached to the images I create.

I want to write about content creation, social media, and what it actually takes to build a creative career.

I want to talk about being Venezuelan, living in Miami, being trans, being queer, growing older, changing your name, rebuilding your life, and learning to care for yourself even when you do not feel especially lovable.

I also want to write about things that are not useful.

Not everything needs to become a tutorial.

Some things can simply be a story.

Back to the root

The title of my original post was “Back to the Root.”

I think I understand that phrase better now.

Going back to the root does not mean going backward.

It means returning to what was true before you became distracted by who you thought you needed to be.

At my root, I am someone who creates.

I take pictures.

I write.

I teach.

I talk too much.

I care deeply.

I want people to feel seen.

I want beauty to feel less intimidating.

I want queer and trans people to see futures for themselves that include joy, ambition, softness, messiness, success, and ordinary life.

I want to build something that feels like me.

Not just something that performs well.

So, hello again

My name is Cristina.

I am 32 years old. I am a trans woman, a licensed esthetician, a photographer, a beauty creator, a social media strategist, a Venezuelan living in North Miami, and the very proud mother of a cat named Pedro.

I am also someone who has been struggling.

I am someone who is getting better.

I am someone who is still becoming.

And I am ready to start writing again.

This time, I am not waiting until I defeat every fear or anxiety.

I am bringing them with me.

Welcome back to the blog.

And, I guess, welcome back to the root.

With love,

Cristina