I've been thinking about my decison to change my style up and start working a mostly black wardrobe. Upon reflection, it's no coincidence that my once chaotic, loud, colourful clothing choices have been pared down to neutral. Has it got something to do with my mood these days or is all that grey turning me into a miserable old bag?It's weird how reinvention not only affects you but the people around you as well. So drastic is my style change that someone at work actually pulled me aside to ask if I was in mourning or something bad had happened. Which on the one hand made me feel like: "shut up, I don't dress for your amusement" but on the other hand was like: "Interesting...". If you believe that the clothes we wear are an expression of ourselves - either who we are or how we wish to be perceived - then suddenly pulling out the widow's weeds might have a deeper meaning for me than I originally thought.
The past year and a half has been a little difficult for me. I won't go into details, but there have been a lot of significant endings and I'm thinking my radical style change has been on some level an attempt to deal with things. Somehow, right now it's important for me to go back to neutrality. But I like to believe it's a place of calm and simplicity rather than just darkness.
I spent most of my late 20s in a sort of functional depression where I was cut off from the rest of the world and I don't want to go there again. So part of my style now is definitely about feeling the need to be fierce, to get girded up, to go into warrior mode. Everything is hard edged and off kilter. Everything is armour. I am prepared for war.
It's not all gloom and doom. I have made many new friends and re-acquianted myself with some old ones. I am picking up on the things that are really important to me and the things that I really want to do that I have somehow stopped myself from doing or put on hold. Yeah, some of it's difficult and in flux but actually life is good. I'm not in mourning at all, what I am doing is taking stock. I am coming back to myself at my most essential so that I can become a more authentic me.
Some of that change might become apparent on this blog. I might have to shut it down altogether. I haven't really made up my mind yet. It depends on who I end up finding at the end of all this. Things might be quiet around here for a while (or maybe, simply different), but I am still here, so when you drop by, say Hi.
Image courtesy of
elsh at Redbubble
