pattern mixing for the middle-aged punk

It was an unremarkable fall day, and I was staring out of the conference room window. The sun played hide and seek behind the dense gray, occasionally lighting the changing foliage ablaze. The Monongahela river shivered between brown and raw iron. The once lush wildflowers were leggy and sallow, their seedpods almost ready to drop and sow next summer’s weeds. As the death rattle of autumn cedes to silence, I too turn inward, nostalgic and melancholic. Especially when the atrocities of war in the middle east and the death of my beloved dog so neatly and annoyingly coincide with the symbolism of oncoming winter.

Then, out of the blue, my husband texted me. “I miss doing blog shoots.”

The air rushed from my nostrils in a torpid snicker. Funny. Our erstwhile photo sessions had been on my mind as well. “Me too,” I typed back.

Like a candle in the breeze, my fashion blog flame has been guttering, threatening to wink out these past few years. But I am still here—almost a decade of translating my firing synapses and emotions into internet prose for friends and strangers. Weird.

The blogging started with me hoping to capitalize on a grassroots fashion moment (like every other girl out there) that could make one rich and famous. Or both. I also wanted to write a novel. Enter a demi decade of hustle, rise and grind culture, where success is equal to the amount of blood, sweat, and tears placed upon the altar. But the thing that hustle and grinders are afraid to utter is this: hard work doesn’t always or necessarily turn into success. More likely, it turns into depression when the object you’ve been striving to achieve remains ever out of reach. Then want it more than the other guy, that culture insists. Work harder and it will come. It’s the lie that keeps on lying.

The problem with taking activities you enjoy and trying to wring financial independence, prestige, accolades, or whatever out of them is you’re setting yourself up for bitterness. The focus shifts to the things you don’t have and you are no longer thinking, Hey, I get to do this cool thing!! (And when do I get to do the cool thing again?) We get caught up in optics and validation. To be specific, I’ve been down on myself for years over my publication status. Or rather, my lack of publication status. People pleasers long to please, but perhaps the people we should be pleasing are ourselves? And what is that saying? Worrying about the future steals present joy? Life is too short as it is. Why should we do anything but add to our own joy? Seems stupid, right? Don’t steal from yourself. Forty-three-year-old life lessons, n’at.

The thing I asked myself recently is: what will I do if nobody wants to read or publish anything of mine? Do I still want to do it? Yes. Follow up question: Am I able to stop doing it? Actually, no. Writing and style are rich veins of curiosity that I will obsessively mine until I die. Okay. So then, for the love of your art, jam out in dram drought, m*th*r f*ck*r!

I typed an additional message to my husband that unremarkable fall afternoon. “Well, if you want to take a picture when I get home, I’m feeling my outfit today.”

Outfit of the Day