In This Issue
Letters from the Margin
Greetings Kindred Minds,
Welcome to the inaugural issue of ID TO MY EGO. It feels fitting that our first conversation explores Reinvention, because it is the theme that has shaped my own life more than any other.
For years I searched for an identity that felt wholly mine. There were seasons marked by grief, uncertainty, and new understandings of my own mental health. Yet through those experiences I discovered something unexpected: reinvention is not the act of becoming someone else or saying that you are someone new. It is the slow and gritty work of uncovering the person who has been waiting beneath fear, expectation, shame and the perfect circumstance all along.
This issue is an invitation to explore that journey together. Through essays, stories, conversations, and cultural reflections, I hope these pages encourage you to consider not only who you have been, but who you are still becoming.
Thank you for joining me at the beginning of this archive.
Liz Éclair
Editor-in-Chief
Essay
Before Every Reinvention, There is A Goodbye
We celebrate fresh starts, new chapters, and turning over a new leaf, but rarely do we linger on the grief of shedding an identity that no longer fits. Through psychology, philosophy, and personal reflection, this essay explores why reinvention is not the act of becoming someone else, but the courage and meditation of remembering who you have always been buried beneath expectation, fear, and performance. Before every reinvention, there is a deep, mournful goodbye.
The Interior
Releasing Inheritance for Reinvention
We inherit more than our family names, we inherit beliefs, fears, expectations, and shame. In this personal essay, Liz Eclair reflects on motherhood, religious deconstruction, resilience, and the courage to reclaim her identity. The Interior explores what it means to choose which parts of our inheritance deserve to be carried forward.
The Spectacle
The Reinvention of Bella Baxter in Poor Things – A film critique
A critique of Poor Things exploring Bella Baxter’s reinvention through autonomy, education, sexuality, and her gradual claim to authorship over her own life.
Studio
Explore John Hui’s black-and-white photographs of beaches, bluffs, and seaside cliffs, where natural landscapes become expressions of the interior life.
Coversations
Reinvention After 50 – Interview with Laura Alvarez
After devoting decades to marriage and motherhood, Laura Alvarez began again after 50. She shares how immigration, art, community, and self-respect helped her reclaim her independence and rediscover herself.
The Dark Commons
Oklahoma’s PeelingFlesh collides slam death metal with hip-hop, sampling, and turntablism—challenging ideas about genre purity and who belongs in heavy music.
The Gothic Library
The creature is not a monster. However, through abandonment and rejection, he is remade into one. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein reveals the darker side of reinvention—and asks how much control we truly have over who we become.