I had the thought that a great way to end this would be to go SHOPPING and buy something DARING and SELF-REDEFINING that would make me EMBRACE MY FORTIES and the FUTURE, but then I remembered that I don’t currently have a steady stream of income so that seems ill-conceived.
So instead I am shopping my closet, as budget babes like to say. For content, and also because I’ve been putting it off for a really long time.
Overall, this exercise left me with more questions than answers. Such as: should I keep these pants? Poll below.
I did not buy these pants off of TikTok. I bought them off of INSTAGRAM, thanks.
Some background: these are mustard yellow corduroys from Halara, a company that always sounds to me like it might be the name of a distant planet where space laborers make cheap work pants and Saturday night dresses for aspiring girlbosses. I’ve worn them a handful of times and always felt like they were doing too much, and the Big Shirt (Updated Version) is key here because in a shirt that isn’t so long, there’s a real bloated camel toe situation happening that we can all agree is the pants’ fault. But also, they’re kind of fine and even warm and comfortable with the Big Shirt? Also, I already own them, that’s a plus.
Another question: how is that the skinny jeans that I was wearing up until like… I don’t know exactly when but not all that long ago(!) look absolutely insane to me now? I know fashion is cyclical, but how does it change our brains and eyes and hearts? I wore this silhouette every day for a decade and it looks absurd to me now! But it is I that have changed! The pants stay the same.
George Costanza shirt for emphasis.
Some other observations:
There’s so much stuff in my closet I don’t wear and it turns out, that’s for good reason! Does not fit! Not fun!
I absolutely underestimated on day one how many Big Shirts I actually have; the count is at 18, depending on how you define “big” and in one case “shirt.”
I didn’t even get to write about how my bangs-growth journey is also a self-discovery of “wrinkles I didn’t have to think about previously” but just know that I’m learning a lot about myself, even now that this project is over.
My dresses owned to dressed worn ratio is truly out of control, so I will be forcing myself to wear more of them. To that end, here’s what I will be wearing to an extremely casual drink this evening:
This dress is from Uniqlo and I told myself I had to wear it NOW or get rid of it, so here we are.
Honestly I feel like I don’t know: where does one wear a dress anymore? My answer used to be anywhere, and now it’s basically nowhere, and I think the right answer is in between.
Here’s a non-pants outfit I like a little better, just for my ego:
I am wearing a cardigan backwards over this. The website said you could!!
Finally: Would you let this woman be your lawyer?
I bought these pants for work and then I left my job, so.
I took the LSAT last Wednesday, and here I am dressing for the job I want (just like, with the clothes I currently have so…). Obviously this is a massive shift from “silly adult,” so please wish me luck.
Okay, I’m so tired of writing about myself now that I feel like a solid five years of abject narcissism is out of my system. Congratulations, therefore, to everyone I know. And thank you for reading!