Bra...Hat?

To illustrate a point to my boyfriend, Bear, I am standing in my closet with a bra on my head. Wait, it will make sense in a minute.

Let’s begin with my wardrobe, shall we?

My dream is to be sleek and elegant, and yet my wardrobe hardly reflects that. What my wardrobe screams is “compromise.” Jeans that fit in the thighs but not in the waist (and vice versa), things that I thought I’d wear when I was thin enough to get into them, random stabs at colors that don’t suit me, and neutrals everywhere. It is bursting at the seams and yet I have very little to wear.

I decide it is time for a clean out. Ummmm, right. Where to start?

I open up my underwear drawer and dump the contents on the floor. Good lord. How can I have so many pairs of holey and fraying knickers?! This is embarrassing. And the socks… Why have I saved so many socks with runs in the fabric and holes in the heels? Was I waiting for them to spontaneously heal themselves?! I make a pile of “keeps” and “not-to-keeps.” And I start to feel good.

On to my bras. I have, ahem, kind of big boobs. Just to illustrate this point, I have discovered (as mentioned above) that some of my bra cups are big enough to be worn as hats. And I don’t mean some puny little yarmulke. I mean HATS, people. Anyway, I begin sorting. All the bras that are falling apart go in a pile. That includes ones with exposed underwire poking through the edges and ones where the underwire has completely snapped. Yes, I said snapped. I have worn bras to the point that the underwire has snapped. I am hard on a bra, ok?

Finally comes my walk-in closet. Now I am really on a roll. I grab t-shirts that are too tight around my muffin top and stuff them into a shopping bag. Next are the jeans that don’t fit. Into the shopping bag they go. This is starting to feel really good. I’m starting to perspire and as I see more room cleared in the closet, I am energized even more. Neutrals that do nothing for me, hand-me-downs that don’t fit, and coats that make me look like a sack of potatoes tied up in the middle… gone.

I survey my bedroom and see seven (!) bags full of clothes that do not suit me strewn around the room. I drag them to my car and drive them down to Buffalo Exchange and let the hipster employees paw through my bags of potential trade-ins. I hate this part. I always feel like the girls at Buffalo Exchange are assessing just how cool (or in my case uncool) I am according to my clothes. I go hide among the racks of used clothes so I don’t have to watch them turn their noses up at my wardrobe.

When I finally come back to check on how my trade-ins are going, I am gobsmacked to find out that they are willing to give me $137 for my crap. I resist the urge to do a little happy dance right there in the store. I gather up the items that they didn’t want and haul them to my car. Then I collect my check and head to the Salvation Army to drop off the rest of my bags.

I give one final wistful look to all the crap that I’ve collected that doesn’t suit me. I vow then and there to never again compromise on the way I present myself to the world. If it doesn’t make me feel wonderful, it isn’t for me.

No more compromises.