So I’m pretty sure I just got dumped. The reason for the ambiguity is, for the purpose of this blog anyway, irrelevant. Clearly, though, I’m confused. Suddenly something you consider a constant in your life is gone. Just not there. Like an earring you heard hit the floor, but has mysteriously vanished. So now you’re stuck with one earring, and the nagging knowledge that if you just looked a little longer you’d find the missing piece.
Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t.
In this case, it looks like I’m gonna have to retire this set (read: relationship) even if the missing earring (read: boy) does turn up. It sucks. It’s fine. There are other guys, other relationships, other fashion analogies to be made.
And yet it was with some surprise that yesterday, having gotten in the car for a mind-clearing drive, I found myself in Nordstrom, digging through the sale rack and amassing a humungous pile of distressed blue jeans, discounted blazers, and about seven Splendid tank tops.
The surprise here was, in essence, the surprise itself. “Huh,” I thought in my sleep deprived, disoriented state, “I’m doing retail therapy.”
“Duh,” was my next thought.
If you’re anything like me, then you too use your closet as a reference point. There are very few items whose origin I do not remember, and can trace back to a certain event or point in my life.
I have dresses not just from prom but also from the sorority formal where I met Mark, the Easter spent in Arizona, or bought because I had been photographed too many times in the same casual wear. I also have the blazer I bought with an ex’s unused Ralph Lauren gift certificate, the tank top that gets me in trouble every time I wear it, and the t-shirt I woke up in after a particularly (un)memorable New Year’s.
Your clothes are part of your narrative, sometimes resulting from and sometimes provoking your situation. Your life.
I spent the summer sleeping in Boy’s frat shirt. The one he gave me years ago at a beach week party when my own t-shirt got thrown in the pool, along with the rest of the lawn furniture. The one I buried for years, only to unearth again as a symbol of a redefined commitment, or at lease the theory of one.
But it’s going in the closet again, and the Theory I’m left with now is a lot more formal than my former relationship.
So, I wondered as I stood clutching a paycheck's worth of clothing, what was the item going to be that defined this particular situation? A corporate blazer to express composure? A back-baring club shirt to re-claim freedom? An ostentatious Burberry jacket to coddle a wounded ego?
While the items taunted me, I couldn't shake the feeling that I didn't want these pieces to be reminders of the missing Boy. They deserved better than that, and I honestly don't need any more pretentiousness in my closet, or my life. What I need is to move on.
So I got practical. I got some new basic t-shirts and replaced an old pair of shoes with a practical new set. (Yeah they're Stewart Weiztman. I never said practical meant cheep.)
I did get something else though: a shabby-sheek BCBG sweater I figure will be nice to curl up with while I watch episodes of True Blood and consume glasses of Pinot Grigio. The sweater is full of holes, but it’s really well made and has a fragile elegance to it. I like the sweater almost as much as I like the metaphor.
