Stripped Session 11

I have come to get to know Maddie pretty darn well through out the year and a half that I have known her.  We actually just spent 11 hours together as she was my assistant for a wedding this past Friday.  I will just say, she is awesome both in front and behind the camera as her job wasn't an easy task keeping me in line. :)

Getting back to her stripped session, the first thing we chatted about was how her and her family just came back from her favorite place on earth...the Harry Potter theme park.  She smiled and even teared up a little while talking about all the different places and how magical it all was.  I knew she was a fan as she brought all of her Harry Potter books for her senior session.  It was the perfect graduation gift her parents could give her.

We talked a lot about getting ready for college, meeting her future roommate and scoring a room in Abel Hall at UNL.  She is super excited to start her college life and I am thrilled at how she beamed when talking about this new adventure.  When you meet Maddie, she is very bubbly and always smiling.  Pretty much anytime she would come to the studio, she had a smile on her face and she was ready to work.  Knowing this,  I was very surprised when she mentioned to me that she had a hard time meeting new people.  I was also very proud that even though she might be dealing with a bit of social anxiety (I am not a doctor, nor am I diagnosing her, it is just my thought) that she plans to go through the UNL rush in August.  

The one question that I have asked a couple of my stripped session models this time around is "What is the one surprise that happened during your senior year?"  I really didn't know what to expect and I was prepared for the answer of "nothing".  But, that hasn't been the case so far.  Maddie and I talked in depth about how she felt like she was being excluded from her closest friends.  She talked about one incident that happened at the end of the school year that brought her to tears.  Listening to her and seeing how heartbroken she was, I couldn't help to cry along with her.  What astonished me as even though she was hurting as she told me, she was very protective of these girls and didn't ever mention names to me.

Afterward,  I told her a story of a girl  I knew who went to high school one day and her three closest friends would not speak to her, none of them would take her calls and basically stopped being her friend for two years until one day during a school trip to Washington D.C. these same girls were talking to her like the past two years never happened. Then I revealed that girl was me.  I know the pain she was experiencing and I assured her that even though this experience was a terrible one, something that will stay with her even in her 30's, it doesn't define her and it will just make her stronger.

This is Maddie stripped...

 

  

 

Maddie, you are a beautiful soul.  I am so honored to have met you.  I cannot wait to say, "I knew you when."