My clothes don’t match today. As I was getting dressed – pink toenails, purple open-toe flats, black and gray argyle footless tights, olive drab miniskirt, purple shirt, black sweater, denim jacket – it occurred to me that I would have loved this outfit when I was sixteen, and I would have worn it all the time. (I can see my mom nodding. Also, I would have worn it with my biker jacket instead of the denim.) After some years of sartorial normalness in my twenties (except for the band costumes!), followed by my nondescript early thirties, I have been getting back in touch with my sartorially weirder self, and it has been lots of fun. Now, I know that a woman in her thirties dressing like a teenager runs the risk of looking like she is either desperately clinging to her youth, or stuck in the past. But, the key to breaking any societal rule is attitude. It’s all about attitude. And accessories.
Accessories!
And, fortunately for me, when I was a teenager I was freaky, and freaky is ageless. Dressing like a freak is entirely more fun as an adult because a) I am old enough at this point to be considered eccentric, which is way cooler, and b) as with the shoe thing, I am not compensating anymore. I never would have admitted it when I was younger, but as naturally odd as I was, somewhere tucked into my combat boots was the knowledge that even if I tried, I couldn’t hit the teen beauty standard.
Anyway, all of this got me thinking about what sixteen year old me would think of now me – just the surface stuff of life. I started having the conversation in my head, and was thinking about writing out the whole thing here, but then decided that in the spirit of sixteen year old me, this is something that should involve notebook paper, list making and doodles. I also recognize completely that this is probably entertaining only to people who knew me and thought I was funny when I was sixteen, so that would be… me. And maybe my mom. But mostly me. Because I have always found myself hilarious. (Click on the image for the full-size jibbajab.)
That was hilarious dear.
grounded in poop.
awesome.