What I’m Wearing…
* Hale Bob leopard print ruffled dress – which looks amazing in the wind, lol. Check it out in action here! I think the leopard print is sold out but I’ve added similar ruffled dresses in the shopping widget below AND they have this same dress in other prints too. AND a super cute short sleeved version. I almost like it better!
* White button down shirt layered under
* Black satin ribbon tied in a bow under the collar
* Vintage grey wool blazer… seen here in 2020 and here in 2010 (ugh… when I update old posts they don’t keep the original date. It drives me crazy!)
* Black lieutenants cap
* Vintage square toe boots from the ’90s… that I actually bought in the ’90s and have kept and just found recently in an old bin and I’m so happy I never got rid of them because I’m wearing them with everything right now!
* Marc Jacobs pillow bag… they have a new, smaller one! I keep thinking I need a new everyday bag because I’ve been using this one forever, but I still like it and also haven’t found anything I like better… so until I do. I’ll be using this one.
* Vintage black sunglasses
To extend the life of my wardrobe AND basically, to be able to wear all my lighter-weight dresses and clothes in winter when it’s freezing, I simply layer them over a black turtleneck or a turtleneck bodysuit, and while it was my first thought for this look, I wanted to create something a little different with this dress… and I think it turned out really fun. I pulled inspiration from this look I found on Pinterest and went with a tied bow/ribbon instead of a men’s tie.
* Title: Fleetwood Mac – Dreams (my favorite karaoke song to sing) …. Thunder only happens when it’s raining… Players only love you when they’re playing
I am so eager for winter to be over this year and so ready for spring and especially SUMMER I can barely stand it! I am just STEPS away from the lake and see the water every day and have a private sandy beach area now that I am just so excited to enjoy once the weather warms up… but in all honesty, I really think wanting to rush this season has more to do with also wanting to rush through and away from my mental space and all the emotional chaos I’m going through at the moment and warm weather and sunshine is the perfect excuse NOT to have to sit and be still with all of these heavy and dark feelings.
The problem is, I actually WANT to heal and move forward and the only way to truly do that is to sit with all the feelings, all the sadness, all the anger, and the tornado of the two combined. When it’s happening though, it’s hard. It’s yucky and it hurts and it’s tears and it’s not sleeping and it’s overthinking and it’s unsettled emotions and in the moment I want to run away from it instead of wading slowly through it. But the only way to get to summer is to go through the cold dark winter. And here is where I find myself… in the bleak midwinter.
Maybe I’ve been distracting myself from true grief for years… and maybe the chaos of owning the bar and my last relationship was just a giant distraction from grieving my past and being alone and feeling all the hard things. It’s been quite detrimental to my mental health but also quite a learning experience as well, and easy to blame my surroundings, but maybe I attracted all those surroundings as a way to cope or learn who I truly was as written by men… but unfortunately it has just layered on new grief and more sadness and wretched heartache and hideous betrayal and raging anger… I dunno. It’s just a theory… and I’m just thinking out loud. I have so much to unpack… years and years of WHY’s so that I don’t make the same mistakes again. But at least now I know. We’ll see in the future if I “know better” and ignore red flags as I have in the past as a way to continue my rescue mission and gain love as a way to prove to myself I’m worthy of it.
I am choosing myself I think for the first time in my adult life. And it’s not easy. Not at all. But I fear that if I don’t, I’ll find my future self in the same patterns and cycles, surrounded by the same type of male energy, and with people who don’t have my best interest at heart… and I don’t want to be that person anymore. I am working on the person I want to be… and the truth is, I think I’ve been derailed from my true authentic self since my early twenties when I allowed a man to dictate the course of my life instead of listening to myself. And I’ve been doing that ever since… without even realizing it, I just hand over my power, my whole self.
It’s funny how well I knew myself before I knew anything at all… and how little I held onto her because at 20yrs old I didn’t know better and when we’re young we tend to listen to what others have to say about us, especially if they also say they love us… (and being “bad” or “good” in accordance with that love) and we don’t realize that they’re saying it for their own benefit; a quiet manipulation to mold us into what they want us to be instead of accepting our boundaries as healthy, adults should… and we do as we’re told thinking it’s our very own choice. Or maybe that was just me?
And you know what they say about boundaries… The only people who get upset when you start setting them are the ones who benefit from you not having any, but you don’t understand that when you’re young and it leaves you questioning yourself, your thoughts, your worth even. For instance, if (according to them) I’m “bad” (i.e. they don’t like what I’m doing) then I’m worthless, or so the subconscious might assume. Or if I don’t do what they want me to do, there will be consequences (like they’ll pull their love away from me, i.e., I’m worthless) and so I may as well just go along with it, even though it’s a total betrayal to the self and my heart. And I think this is how and why I have codependent relationships and lose myself entirely in them… and it probably started even earlier than this, as trauma often does, in early childhood. And maybe that’s the crux of it… I find men who in some way, portray themselves as victims of their lives, who need saving and think I can come in and rescue them from their demons, and in doing so, they will love me and cherish me and see me as worthy… so that I can see me as worthy… And maybe it’s a reenactment of what I wish would have happened with my father, that I would have been good enough to deserve his love. And so I’ve been on a journey trying to prove my love to men who were unworthy of it and who only ever saw me as object and for how I made them feel, and for how much I did for them, which was never ever enough… and I wonder if I’ve ever truly felt love that wasn’t transactional in some way or that didn’t come with conditions. I certainly didn’t realize my worth depended upon it until now.
That’s the thing about youth though, you know who you are but aren’t sure of your values yet because you’re caught between what you’ve been taught, questioning the belief’s your family has handed down to you and what you think is actually right for you and somehow rebelling against it all to prove to yourself you can… never mind the unearthed trauma just waiting to be replayed over and over for infinity… and you’re still working everything out and in that way, figuring out who you really are.
And looking back, it’s a dangerous place to tread, especially if you’re surrounded by unsafe and selfish men because it truly molds you into who you become for the rest of your life in relationships if you never question it… and why would you when each face thereafter wears a new mask, seemingly unfamiliar from the last, only to be exposed over time, when the sun shines too brightly. And then once you’re energetically drained to absolutely nothingness, only then is it glaringly obvious.
If you’re lucky, you find freedom there and grow wings to fly because you’re safe and loved. But if you’re like me, you learned to trust people who said they loved you, and still do… and find that might be the biggest and most consistent scam of your entire life.
Happy Thursday Lovecats!
* Find all my Style posts here
Completely Gratuitous Outfit / Jeans with Pink Blouse & Blazer
