So this Sunday I open my cupboard and find there is nothing, absolutely nothing that will represent on the outside what I am feeling today. I haven’t been checking inside often enough to keep in touch with who I am. Not worked hard enough at buying clothes to suit the new me I am becoming. And Boom one day the ignored little me explodes in outrage and rwants to throw away everything inside the cupboard!Pushing the Big me into a well where the first thing I can manage after getting over the shock of it is to wallow in self pity.
Imagine the feeling of ‘I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH CLOTHES’. Even when your closet can’t quite contain everything you have. Its not low esteem. Its just not having enough clothes that you like. That fit you and that will cover you!
For a long time now I kept hoping that I would go out shopping for myself; but didn’t know any stores that keep the kind of clothes I liked wearing( I have grown out of fab india and they dont keep my size) Or when everything I liked was more than what my wallet will let me consider( Have been broke for last few months) All that I liked and kept wearing again and again is now been worn so often that everyone has seen it and is tired of seeing it too! ( not that blue print again pleaaseee my friends shriek everytime I turn to the comfort of that tried and tested attire!)
So it went on inside long before it broke open as a crisis today! As if my own morning struggle to find something to wear wasn’t enough a friend whose dressing sense I admired made a joke about (the only) White Jacket I was wearing (which I also wore on my last three dates!) saying it looks like ‘your cricket jacket’!
Smiling while gritting my teeth at that one I really think he had a point!
To my horror I realised I have JUST 2 jackets one is black and the other is white. One 2 year old pair of black canvas shoes which I wore everywhere I went (as you too would if you were in my place!) And I dint even consciously acknowledge that they were ugly till a skinflint friend I went shopping with offered to buy me new ones. (They must be really over the top ugly for him to make an offer like that to me!)
The only compliment that I received in the last three weeks was on a mauve top that I wore that a friend gifted to me. (Mind you gifted and not purchased!) That compliment must have really filled in some void that I had been avoiding noticing (the void of wanting compliments on what one is wearing) so like a fool I again wore the same color that had got me the much cherished compliment.
This time though the effort fell flat on its face. ( Me too along with it when I realised that far from suiting me mauve actually made me look fat!) So all the hardwork of mauve sweater, blue jeans and white jacket(again white jacket!) made a very sorry day. And I kept hoping he wouldn’t notice my shoes( which were the same black old canvas shoes which he had proposed to replace!) And thank god he didn’t! But I did!
I having being housetrained in modesty and the value of being simple and thus havent ever ritually gone out to shop for clothes. Consequently I never have anything to wear every time there is a wedding looming. So mostly I don’t attend the looming wedding. Sometimes when I strike some jugad I borrow lovely clothes from my generous friends end up wearing them with the wrong accessories (saris with wrong shoes or saris on the wrong side or with a wrong colours blouse!)
Meanwhile envious thoughts of women who manage to sizzle in clothes are tormenting me. You know those women who always manage to look good in whatever they wear.Those women who on sudden impulse can produce and flounce the finest silks and find matching earrings and bangles. Women who can carry briefcase full of fineries when they go out to attend weddings. Imagine living in the plenty of owning some 10-12 complete pairs of clothes which look good and yet don’t make you feel fat! Its cornucopia. Unbelievable with my present height weight money karma.
Sometimes I think this dressing well is some kind of rocket science. Only some women who have some special kind of grey cells that can handle it. (Just like only some women can handle maths)I have struggled with both as much as I could but just to be at par takes 8 times more effort for me!
I don’t know whether just to give up on ever getting the knack of it or keep striving hoping someday I’ll know where to buy that one thing that will not make me wrinkle my nose in the mirror. Something that I will love at the first sight of it will be my favourite colour; will look good at me without making me look too fat. Something that wouldn’t be more high maintenance than I can handle and something that rest of the world will by nod their heads in liking too.
Too much to ask I know. And therefore I dont ask.
1 comment:
Ohh! I can completely relate to this post. I guess it is the story of most of us.
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