Same Old, Same Me
My clothes are black, my shoes are black, my accessories are black. To most people I look the same each and every day, and there is an incredible freedom in that. I look how I look, and for the first time in a very long time I can increasingly say - I’m fine with that. Yes, we all have things about ourselves we wish we could change, and on some (if not most) days that list seems endless. Yet I am slowly but surely coming to a place where I am ok with the fact that right here, right now, things are ok. It rather unfortunately sounds like a radical thought, to be content with how we are right now, after all we are taught to believe we are not quite good enough yet. Of course there is always room for improvement, but to be honest, we are pretty darn amazing just right now.
I always hear people talking about fashion as a form of escapism, and that sits uneasily with me. Why should I need to escape my life? What exactly am I escaping from? If it is to be an escape, I see it as the very opposite to how it is ordinarily considered. Rather than seeing fashion as a means to escape to some distant fantasy, I see it as a way of escaping the outside world and coming home - curling up on the sofa with a loved one, a cup of tea, and a good film. Instead of my clothes taking me away, they should bring me home. Wherever I am, whatever I am going through, these clothes that I wear protect me and comfort me, but more importantly, they ground me. Clothes to protect you from the harshness of life, and clothes to make you realize just how beautiful you actually are.
I do not own very many clothes, and perhaps that makes the process easier. I know every single piece intimately - I know how they fit, I know how they feel. Interestingly I do not entirely know how they look, I have been dressing without the use of a mirror for some time now, and it is in its own way rather liberating. Dressing according to a feeling rather than according to some exacting idea of a look is a luxury all of its own, and hopefully it teaches me something valuable. It is all too easy to get caught up in the idea of how we think things need to look, whether it be our bodies or our outfits, but perhaps it is better to focus instead on how we feel. Instead of being critical, we come to accept things as they are, working with them, rather than against them.
Smile, things are so much better than you think they are.
xxxx