Don’t start here! Start at the beginning!
I’d spent years talking about my frustration with men’s fashion and my blossoming appreciation of women’s fashion. I now had an example of a man embracing women’s fashion. Naturally I should do something with that, right?
Nope.
I spent the next two years chewing on it. Mulling it over. Considering. Wondering. Waffling. Waiting.
Wanting.
Ha! Just when you thought you’d escaped!
Throughout my life, I’d never really cared about how I look. Until high school, I wore mostly sweatpans and plain shirts because they were comfortable. I tried jeans a few times, and they always felt too rigid and constrictive. Hello there, undiagnosed autism! In high school I started wearing jeans, because sweat pants started contributing to the bullying. They hardly started it, but most of the causes were things I couldn’t change. Clothes, I could change. I still didn’t like jeans; they still felt wrong to me.
After all, I always saw the same thing in the mirror, no matter what I wore. I saw my body, following my movements and staring back at me, but it never really felt like me. Or even a reflection of me. It was just a husk that looked liked me. A lifeless husk, with lifeless eyes. Unblinking, unflinching, unmoving eyes. I could never really focus on the rest of my body, because those eyes just creep me out.
By definition, you never see your own eyes move in a mirror. Or blink. You can see all that on video, but not in a mirror. You’re looking directly into your own eyes. And they’re always looking straight back at you. They do move and blink, but you never see it. It gives the illusion that this body in the reflection has no soul. No life.
I’d apologize for that, but it’s important. Anyway, back to the story.
So looking at myself was never meaningful to me. My body was never meaningful to me.
Having this amazing tuxedo gown as a reference, fulfilling my every wish for clothing, I could finally see a destination that I loved, and I wished I could achieve. But I didn’t see a way to get there. Let’s be honest, I’m no Billy Porter. And I don’t have a Christian Siriano designing clothes for me. I could revel in the representation of these ideals, and I could hope that someday that ideal would work its way down to us little people, so I could partake in it. So I could have permission.
For two and a half years, that’s as far as it went.
When my kid got bullied for wearing nail polish, I wanted to show them that they don’t have to care what other people think. That they get to decide for themselves who and how they are, and who and how they want to be. Nobody else gets to decide that for them, and anybody who looks down on them because of that is just a narrow-minded fool who’s gonna be forever stuck with society’s stupid rules. They don’t need permission to be themselves.
And for once I actually listened to my own words.
I’d been stuck with society’s rules. I’d been living for other people’s approval. I’d been denying myself to avoid bullying. I was waiting for permission to be myself. Thankfully, I saw the parallel then, just as clearly as you’re reading it now, and I realized I had a chance to truly put my money where my mouth was. I remembered Billy Porter in that amazing gown, and the joy that I felt at the idea of one day being able to do that myself.
So I decided to do it myself. But it wasn’t easy.
I took me a few days to research, because I knew I wouldn’t feel comfortable shopping in the women’s section of any stores. Or worse, shopping in a women’s clothing store! I had to do this in private, because I was absolutely convinced that what I was doing was wrong. That everyone would hate me. I knew that I needed to do it anyway, but no one could know.
My research ended up on Amazon, where I could shop more or less anonymously. There’s a wide variety of products available in many styles, giving me a better chance of finding something I’d be willing to try. I couldn’t blame the store for not having anything for me. Most brands also had size charts available online, which meant that I could measure myself at home and pick a reasonable size, rather than risking a fitting room at a store. And prices were relatively low compared to many local stores, which was good for an experiment that I might regret very quickly.
I finally landed on a simple, purple, knee-length skirt. I’ve explained elsewhere what purple means to me, and I was hoping that the color would help me like what I saw. Or at least allow me to focus on the skirt itself and how I feel, rather than being upset that it’s the wrong color.
The only downside of ordering online is that now I had nothing to do but wait.
And think.
Continue to part 4: the wait.
