There is a very good chance you own something that has been quietly telling you you’re not good enough, and I don’t think you’ve ever realized that’s what it was doing. This is a post about why you should wear the good clothes, today, not someday.
I had a pair of jeans like that for almost fifteen years.
They fit me once, before my last two kids. I told myself I was keeping them for when I got back to that size. But that was never really what they were doing in my closet. What they were actually doing, every single day, was telling me I wasn’t there yet. I wasn’t good enough. I hadn’t tried hard enough. As if my body owed something to a pair of pants.
Here is the truth I finally had to face. Nothing was wrong with me. My body had done exactly what bodies do after carrying two more children, it changed shape, not just size. Even if I had lost every pound, I was never getting back into those jeans the same way, because that body simply did not exist anymore. And they were so out of style by the time I let them go that I would not have worn them regardless.
For fifteen years, I let a pair of pants convince me I was the problem, when there was nothing to solve. I was just a woman who had lived, and had two babies, and changed, the way every living thing changes.
What “Someday” Clothes Are Really Doing
Maybe you are not holding onto clothes because you are waiting to change size. Maybe it is something else. You tell yourself you never go anywhere, so what is the point of wearing the good blouse, the pretty dress, the pieces you actually love. So they sit in the closet. Waiting for what?
Every day is a special occasion. We are given a new day and the chance to show up in it, and most of us are saving our best for a moment that keeps not arriving.
People say use the good china. I say wear the good clothes.
Why I Wear the Good Clothes Every Day
I have a couple of sequin skirts I made for myself. I wear them with t-shirts and sneakers to the grocery store. I do not wait for a special occasion to put them on, because I decided the occasion is being alive today.
You have a cocktail dress hanging in your closet somewhere, saved for the next wedding or holiday party. Why not wear it on a Friday night to go to the movies? There is something fun about putting on the unexpected thing on an ordinary night.
And here is what I want you to know. There is nothing wrong with being overdressed. Not when you understand that you have something to offer the world, and that understanding is exactly what makes you willing to stand out instead of blend in. Somebody out there might need the woman who was brave enough to wear the good dress on a Tuesday.
Your Closet, Honestly
Look at what is hanging in there.
Some of it is genuinely waiting for an occasion that will come. That is fine. Keep it.
But some of it is quietly punishing you the way my jeans did. It is not there because you love it or because you are excited to wear it again. It is there as a measuring stick, a reminder of a body or a life you think you are supposed to get back to. That is not motivation. That is just an old voice you have not let go of yet.
Let it go. And then, for everything that is left, the pieces you actually love, stop waiting for the right day. Wear the good clothes. Wear them to the grocery store.
Wear the good clothes. Not someday. Tomorrow morning.
If you want a second set of eyes on what is hanging in there, and what it is quietly telling you, a closet consultation is a good place to start.
If this resonates, I made something for you. It is called Stop Making Yourself Smaller: A Guide for Women Who Are Ready. You can get it here.
— Beth