Homecomings Revisited

After I finished writing about my evolving relationship with color, one passage in particular stuck out to me.

But during the past year, I've begun to change. Slowly and with much deliberation but change nonetheless.

Moving back to Boston almost one year ago has affected how I dress more than any other event in my life. From the beginning, I was steely in my determination not to change back into the girl I had been before. I wanted to continue on the path to adulthood that graduating from college and starting my first real job and moving to a new city had forced me on to. To most clothing would have little to do with such growth, and, to those people, this probably sounds silly. We’re just talking about dresses and shirts and skirts and shoes here. They can’t mean all that much. But for me they are an outward manifestation of all that has changed internally. Injecting color. Shortening hems. These were all ways to stop myself from retreating back into the cozy shell that had at once been so comforting and stifling.

As recently as a few months ago, I thought of most of the clothes I come across in stores, in magazines, and on the various blogs that I peruse daily as items for later. Or for fantasies. I was always too much of one thing or not enough of something else to pull them off. There was no room for them in my life or my closet. They were for those bold others.

In more ways than one, I’ve tired of not being one of those bold others. And though New York changed me somewhat in that respect, I became lazy in a way. My style followed suit. I grew to a certain point and then stopped because further growth wasn’t necessary. Because I was an adult. Living on my own. Staying out as late as I liked. Choosing what to do with my time.

Part of the package when one has to move back to that place one once called home is, in some ways, being forced back into the role of child. But nothing will cause you to become more of an adult than fighting against that as hard as you can.

Last week, on one of my window shopping adventures, I tried on the black and non-sequined version of this 3.1 Phillip Lim dress while in Barneys.

When I glanced at myself in the mirror, I didn’t, as I had done in the past, shy away from the woman looking back at me.

I was, and am, done with that.


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