Last summer I got the urge to pare down my wardrobe and start over. The urge didn’t come from a need to purge but rather the urge to not make decisions anymore. I used to love putting together outfits but suddenly I wanted a uniform. I used to rail against uniforms since I grew up attending a strict Christian school with wild wardrobe policies. The only detention I ever received at my high school was because I wore a plain white sweater on a frigid South Florida day (temp range was probably in the 50s). I got in trouble because, although the sweater was white with no logos or emblems, it was missing the most important emblem of all- our school’s crest. Which our school’s crest was a shark spinning a basketball on it’s fingers (yes, I have questions too) but of course it was important to my education and to Christ* that I had this baller shark on my polo (*capitalism since we were forced to buy overpriced uniforms from one specific store). So as a result of not wearing one I was forced to write some Bible verse 200 times.
So I usually love being set free to the wild to wear whatever I want. Which is usually just a crewneck and jeans, but I loved having the options. However with the last few years gaining ground on my brain, I needed a timeout on figuring out what to wear. Also I felt the need to age up my wardrobe a little, not that I am succumbing to the lie that “we’re old now!” but I did want to look a bit more mid-thirtyish. So for the first time I put together a Pinterest board of clothes, talked to some people about where to buy it and even set aside a budget (what) for this (very mid-thirtyish already!!). I wanted to buy a bunch of stuff that would last awhile and for my brain to finally be set on cruise control. But in actuality, I was in the beginning stages of shedding an identity rather than just getting a nicer pair of pants.
Around the same time I signed up to do 23andme, something I’ve written extensively about here. Maybe the clothing thing was just my brain’s way of soft launching me into a different identity. I knew one was coming, but I thought I knew what it would look like. I thought it be similar to what my adopted parents had told me and I knew it couldn’t be that much different than the culture I was raised in. Also knowing where your dna stems from, to me, didn’t mean anything new to my body. My eyes, style, talking cadence etc. wouldn’t change just because I learned where I’m from. Right? It would explain more than it would enhance, it would give light to who I am but wouldn’t change the person I was. I was hesitant to adopt anything new because I did very much like the person I was and valued being a person of non-identity when it came to heritage. Which I do think is still a valid identity- that of being of no one.
My results came back and to my shock I was Italian! Well a quarter Italian plus a bunch of other things that were not as surprising. But no one saw that stat coming so it was a nice way to kickstart the summer. I also noticed I had relatives in Jersey (very, very distant) so I was excited about my end of summer trip to New York which would also take me to New Jersey for a few days. I never saw myself wanting to live in New York and was ready to go, run around a bit, check out my homeland Jersey and then come back home to LA. One of my favorite feelings is flying back into LA because it means I’m coming back to me. My stuff, in the places I want them to be. My routine, my running routes, my life all in a harmonious congruence appealing nicely to my Virgo nature.
New York was great and a trip just like all the former ones. Nothing stuck out too much until suddenly I got the urge to stay one more day. I’m still unsure where this came from, just like the urge to change my wardrobe. It was a swift decision and was made possible by airlines not charging to change flights. I was able to book myself a nice hotel room, change my flight for free and concede the monetary damages to turning 35.
I stayed for one more day and then two more days. Then I stayed for one more night. I kept wanting to stay, and my proclivity to come back home was etching further and further away. Not that I was drawn to the magic of the city, but I was drawn to who I was while I was there. The aloneness, the decisions I was making without being perceived by my peers, the feeling of a new chapter. I was finally living for my Italian Greek self, in my new clothes and making decisions that didn’t hinge on how they would effect my career or future. I was in the now, baby!!
I came back to LA and then almost immediately booked another trip to New York, which at this point if you’re reading this you probably saw me overpost about on Instagram. I went back for 6 weeks and was proud that I only extended that trip again by a mere two days. It was healing, restorative, the best, fulfilling, etc etc and just ultimately the kindest thing I have ever done for myself. I also went in with a limited wardrobe, which you wouldn’t have been able to tell by my oversized luggage that I had to reconfigure at LAX at 6am. But I had a uniform for my 6 weeks, the longest I’ve ever been away from my stuff and longest I’ve ever had to rely on a short supply of clothing. I bought things here and there as needed and those things are now deeply tied into memories I made surrounding their purchase. I will hold tight to the flannel coat I purchased on a cold walk of shame home and I will bow down to my long oversized men’s blazer that I bought on three margaritas because they remind me of a really fun version of myself I don’t want to forget.
Also related to clothes and New York- one night at drinks with a friend while I was there we both realized we were in similarly great moods. He mentioned his mood stemmed from wearing a good outfit which immediately made me realize I was feeling the same exact way because I had been wearing a great outfit all day. I remember reading this Manrepeller article about how all good outfits expire at 3pm, which I do agree with but this outfit did not expire. It broke through the 3pm barrier and was the current charging a great drinks meet up. I mention this because I do think clothes are sometimes an indicator of your current mood whether intentionally or not.
I got back to LA on a Tuesday night and by 10:00am the next morning had unpacked everything from the trip. Which sounds even more impressive when you learn that not only was I unpacking 6 weeks of New York, I also was unpacking 11 years of Los Angeles. My friend subletted my place while I was gone so I had packed all my clothes from my closet and dresser so he had some room of his own. So when I got back, I was now essentially unpacking two versions of myself. I quickly unpacked my L.A. self, waiting to feel something. I was waiting to feel sad about my trip ending or at least happy about being back with my stuff and my home. But nothing. Until I did start feeling sad that I had no emotion over this and maybe this trip was just a little blip in my life. It meant something for the time, but it wasn’t something for the future.
That was until I opened my suitcase and started unpacking my New York clothes. I had a reaction to every single thing I unfolded. The person I was in these clothes made me happy. That was the person I currently loved. It was a true gut hit moment, and it felt like betrayal hanging these clothes in their new old home, my closet. To really drive the point home, a few days later I opened up my linen closet to grab a towel and my towel robe fell out which was shocking to me. It was shocking because I’ve used this towel robe for a time longer than I will admit to on the Internet and I had simply forgotten all about it. It was a such deeply engrained part of my shower routine and for me to forget about it seemed like I forgot I had a foot. More pieces of me shedding I guess to make room for a newer version (which turned out to be checkered towels from Target).
It feels very cheesy to write about something new during the New Year season. I’m also not writing this to announce that I am moving to New York (well, yet) or that I think NY is better than LA or that there should ever be any kind of dual between the two. I think for the most part we are all searching for the right vibe, the right mood. Right now mine is just leaning in a different direction than the one I’ve been speeding ahead on all these years. It’s more open to whatever than closed to what I assumed. I really loved who I was towards the end of 2021 and all the decisions felt the most me. Grossssss. If you unsubscribe, I get it- I’m barfing over my feel goodness too. Especially with this whole newsletter being a theme of new clothes, new you… I am so sorry. But I do love a new thing and I’m enjoying this momentum. It also feels cheesy in general to display my feelings in a newsletter and also recap my thoughts and experiences into something that slides into my friend’s inboxes, but here we are and I am going to continue on in this vulnerable state. It feels nice to be grounded into my wants and have expectations that feel totally me, and not how I want others to perceive me. I like doing these newsletters and I’ll keep at them, hopefully sticking to sending them out every other week (lol).
re: what’s going on
Yellowjackets- I love it!! Mostly because it comes out weekly and feels reminiscent of my college days where we would discuss Lost theories every week leading up to the new episode. Which, how are they both plane crashes! We live in a simulation, that is for sure.
I like the new game fad, Wordle. It is a nice and fun 10 minutes. Who cares just do it!
I’m running the LA marathon and putting it in writing because of accountability to actually run the dang thing this year. If it even happens?? What a life we are living, huh!
Not to BRAG and make everyone feel BAD but I read two books over the last few weeks and will give both a hell yeah in the chat. Milk Fed is such an easy read, get to it on one of those weekend afternoons where you are tired of catching up on Survivor. I also read The Lonely City, which I never wanted to end. It was marketed as a book about a mid-thirties woman (!) taking an alone trip (!!) to New York (!!!!!!!!!) and her thoughts about it. But the book is more of a deep dive into artists who spent alone time in New York which was equally as compelling to me and I truly could read this book forever.
And will top off this newsletter with a picture of me and my mom that I found while I was home that has simply become My Favorite Thing.
Thank you for reading see you in two weeks!
YESSSS