These days, the only thing getting me dressed is the fact that public nakedness is illegal. And you know, I figure Jesus might not prefer it either.
That's it.
I wish I could tell you there was something more noble underneath the sweats and the wet hair and the skipped mascara. Like I'd opted out of the performance of getting dressed on principle. I completely disagree with that line of thinking, but man — if it were a philosophy and not a symptom, this would feel a lot less sad.
The honest version is this: I've completely lost the ability to invest in myself. Getting dressed has stopped being how I show up for myself and started being just the thing I do before I leave the house. I don't want anything tight, anything that requires more than existing in it. And on top of it, my clothes don't fit right. I feel frumpy. I only want to be comfortable.
Time says it all. I used to wake up with plenty of it — a full face, a real shower, actual effort put into what I was wearing. Now I put off getting ready until the last possible minute, and then a little past that. I sprint through the shower. I leave with my hair wet. I find something that will do. I skip makeup entirely. The investment is gone.
There is a version of me who woke up with plenty of time and used it. She had a trained eye and put it to strong use — on other people, on product, on a room, on herself. She spent years working in corporate merchandising, surrounded by people whose entire job was taste.
Her jeans had fringe on the bottom, colored stripes down the side, embellishments, unexpected cutouts. Always a classic with a twist, but never enough to tip into costume. People stopped to compliment her, then asked where she bought it.
Her floor was higher than my ceiling now.
From a young age, What Not to Wear was a staple on her screen. The subjects confused her — specifically the ones who had let comfort become king. She can't even put on a pair of jeans?
If there's a confessional nearby, I'll be in it. Forgive me, Father, for I have judged. As I write this, I sit here as a version of the women described above. Just in a different font.
What I didn't understand then, what I couldn't have, is that most of those women weren't careless. They were empty. Moms, caretakers, people who had given everything to everyone else until there was simply nothing left to give themselves. I have never been this depleted before. I always had enough left over to still show up for myself. Until I didn't.
So this is also me.
I'm not expecting myself to go from sports bras straight to underwire overnight. Just trying to get one degree closer to her, eventually landing back in a push up.
So I'm approaching it the only way that feels manageable right now: like a project. Learning what actually works on this body, in this season. Not the body I had. Not the woman who couldn't relate to elastic waistbands. This one. Now.
It's a start.