I let myself go
February 5, 2011
The past few nights, after my son is in bed, as the temperature outside dips well below zero, I find myself snuggled under a blanket on the couch. I am not usually much of a TV watcher, but there is something about a deep freeze that numbs me into submission.
My husband mans the remote. We came across a show where a daughter wrote a pleading letter to an uber-trendy stylist requesting that she transform her frumpy mother who had “let herself go.”
I’ve seen these types of shows a few times in the past. Almost always, the fashion “victim” is very reluctant to be made over. She is perfectly happy the way she is.
Occasionally there is someone who can’t find work because she shows up for job interviews in sweatpants. I admit this person may need some guidance in order to improve her life.
But more often than not, the person is gainfully employed or a hard working stay at home mother, and simply doesn’t care if the Fashion Police consider her look a style emergency.
I get sucked into these shows like a gawker at a traffic accident. I once watched a self-righteous stylist yank a favorite Christmas sweater from the trembling hands of a crying woman and throw it in the trash. So what if she wore it to the supermarket in June! She felt good wearing it.
Instead of celebrating the stylist’s moxie for making this woman cry, we should be celebrating the tearful woman’s courage to dress the way she likes.
In my twenties, I really enjoyed clothes. I’ve always eschewed brand names, opting instead for great deals at discount chains and classic finds at second-hand stores.
I loved getting compliments on something I’d purchased used for three dollars, or I’d bought on clearance two sizes too big and taken to a tailor to rebuild for ten bucks.
I had my hair colored beyond repair, until a concerned stylist refused to add any more highlights for fear it would start falling out. Finally, I let it alone to return to its natural state.
I’ve never been much of a make-up person, but the little I wore I never left the house without.
This has all changed in the last four years. I can’t remember the last time I went shopping for anything other than groceries, tennis shoes for my son, and green sweats that he can use to dress up like a ninja turtle.
I may cut off my long hair one of these days to end the monotony of braids and buns, but only if the new style doesn’t take any more time to fix in the morning. The extra ten minutes in front of the mirror is better spent on the living room floor surrounded by Lego pieces.
It isn’t that I don’t care. I care a lot, about very different things. The birth of my son is only a small contributor to my transformation. Sometime in the last few years I realized that whether my day is spent shopping and styling or playing hide-and-seek, it still ends. And I’ll never get that day back.
I’m sure in the future I will once again have the time and money to spend shopping for myself. And I’m sure it will be fun. But, I hope I never lose another moment of my life worrying about split ends or whether my sweater is out of season.
I hope I never forget how good it felt to let myself go.
This article first appeared in the Lewistown News-Argus and the Sidney (Mont.) Herald on February 5, 2011.