I (Kind-of) Hate Clothes

No, this is not a post where I announce I have become a nudist. Rest easy.

It's about someone who spooks me.

I’m not afraid of many things, not really. I do worry and obsess about this and that, but real fear and trembling, thankfully, no.

But I am deeply afraid of a woman of my acquaintance.

This is why: on Sunday evenings, she chooses all the clothes she will wear for the coming work week. She arranges them, cleaned and pressed, hanging in order, on the back of her closet door. She chooses shoes, jewelry, scarves, barrettes, and other accessories to complement each outfit. I haven’t asked her about her undergarments, but she probably has those picked out and color coordinated with each day’s clothing choices. All she need do each morning is pull the prepared outfit and dress.

This is terrifying to me on so many levels.

Over the last twenty years (who thought I would ever live long enough to make such a statement?), my interest in fashion has waned. I don’t hold it against anyone who follows clothing styles and dresses trendily; it just doesn’t float my boat anymore. For my work as a teacher, I need to be presentable, but as one fashion forward young student told me, “No one cares what an English teacher wears.”

She got bonus points for rhyming. And I agree with her for the most part. My memory is shaky, and I do occasionally wonder if I have repeated an outfit in the same week, but I figure my students have too many other things to worry about. Honestly, they could care less if Mrs. B. wears the same outfit on Friday that she wore on Monday, and it’s extremely unlikely they would even notice!

An annoying development lately has been that I have trouble pulling my separates together to dress for work. (For some reason I never wear dresses to work, so I always have to put a top with a bottom.) I remember back to my own college student days, and one professor who always wore khaki pants and a nicely ironed, colored, button down shirt (he had an excellent shirt-laundry). Some of the other students commented on his lack of imagination, but I admired him for making a choice and sticking with it! Would his teaching have been more effective if he threw some navy or black pants into the mix? Oh, please.

Part of my dilemma in dressing each morning is my demand for comfort. With my menopausal madness, I can’t stand anything that’s binding, itchy, or too heavy. Some days I can’t bear the thought of wearing certain dark colors, other days I dress in black from head to toe, trying to maintain a cloak of invisibility. This morning I made immediate progress choosing black pants, but tried three or four tops on. I was disgusted with myself, and having flashbacks to my teen years, when clothing mattered to me and I had similarly indecisive mornings.

With the temperature forecast to possibly reach 80 degrees today, my big concern was finding a couple of comfy layers that would not suffocate me. Should this decision really be so difficult? No. But difficulty making decisions is one more crackpot menopausal symptom. Finally I settled on a sleeveless teal shell covered with a cotton-knit cardigan—in leopard print! Woo-hoo, and I was out the door.

I will never be the lady who picks out all her clothes on Sunday night and carefully hangs them on the back of the closet door. I never want to be that organized. The thought of it chokes me. I want to run, screaming.

If you are that pulled-together fashion-wise, please never, never tell me. Or I’ll be terrified of you, too.