Since leaving full-time work in the early 2000s, dealing with childlessness, and becoming a self-employed consultant, a Board Chair, a volunteer from home, and a blogger, my budget changed, my body ballooned, and in some ways confidence in my style dwindled. “Calm. Sophisticated. Professional. And a little bit daring and fun.” That’s what I said in my previous post about my clothes, and how I wanted to present myself to the world. But when I didn’t feel quite so calm, or professional, I didn’t really replace these words with anything else.
Up until about 2010, I went through a few good years – I grew my hair for the first time, and for the first time in my life didn’t mind having photos taken of myself. (One of the reasons I’ve decided to embrace my natural colour is to try growing it again.) I used Penny’s lessons to be able to buy some cool, more casual clothes at less expensive shops. (Penny did supply the infamous inside-out dress of 2009, though.) My trip to Spain in 2007 was the first overseas trip where I truly dressed the way I wanted to dress, and was happy to pose for photos. (No, you’re not going to see them!)
But in the last ten years, the truth has been that I just don’t need a lot of clothes. Apart from Board meetings, and the occasional client meeting, I have been living and working from home since 2002. Work dried up in the last seven years too, which means my clothes budget has shrunk, even if I haven’t. I have managed to find that things that look okay, but few items that make me feel good. For the last ten years or so, I’ve had a winter uniform of jeans (blue and black), black thermal tops or the occasional merino top go under a cardigan or interesting knitted jacket. I dress it up or down with fun costume jewellery or brightly coloured scarves. I feel okay in winter. I still look kinda like myself, though more boring than I want.
Summer, though, is a different matter. Summer clothes and colours don’t always hide my body or flatter it in the way my winter clothes might. I cut my hair short again too (before we went to Europe and the Middle East in the height of summer – it was a good decision, as I can’t stand hair on the nape of my neck in the heat), so photographs once again emphasise my lack of symmetry and are again frequently a source of embarrassment. Never comfortable with heat, as a larger woman of a certain age I particularly dislike it now. Summer makes me want to hide. The best part of last summer, which was quite miserably cool, was that I could wear a coloured denim jacket over T-shirts almost all the time!
I think I feel more boring as a result. Or perhaps my clothes actually reflect how I feel. A lot of it is related to the elephant in the room, which is me, the elephantine woman. I’ve lost some weight over the last couple of years, but have a long way to go, and it seems to be an endless battle. I’m working hard on it – but clearly not hard enough. I was always slim and athletic when I was younger, and I still think of myself (ridiculously now) as tall(ish) and slim. It’s the very false image of myself that I hold in my head. So it’s not just a case of my outside (my clothes) not matching my inside (my personality), my outside body doesn’t match my inside body either.
As a result, I’ve lost much of the style that made me feel good. Even though, in these last 15 years, I’ve learned so much more about myself, have found myself in many ways, and feel much more comfortable with myself. So the outside does not really match the inside, which is still figuring itself out anyway as life continues to change. My clothes don’t reflect my personality. Or maybe I’m scared that they do? My body doesn’t match my brain. My clothes don’t reflect my idea of who I am or want to be. My style is stuck in a bog of disappointment.
