A woman sat with me not long ago talking about she would love to get some of her clothes altered. Good clothes, clothes she already owned. But she said she didn’t feel right taking money out of the family account for something that was just for her. I have heard a version of that more times than I can count, and underneath it is always the same question: why am I afraid to spend money on myself?
I understood her completely. There was a stretch of my life when I was a single parent and every single dollar had a job before it ever left my hand. I know what it is to look at a price tag and calculate what else that money could become instead.
But most of us aren’t actually doing that math anymore. We’re doing a different one. We’ve decided, somewhere along the way, without ever really deciding it, that spending on ourselves needs a better excuse than just because I want to feel good in my own clothes. So we let guilt live in that spot instead. We tell ourselves someone else needs it more. We tell ourselves it can wait.
What I saw in the mirror this week
I had a mother of the bride pick up her dress this week. She lives in jeans and a t-shirt a size too big, most days. She stood in front of my mirror and could not stop looking at herself. I don’t think she’s looked at her whole body in a mirror like that in a long time. She isn’t a slender woman. That had nothing to do with it. What I watched happen in her face wasn’t about her size. It was about finally wearing something that had been made to fit the body she actually has.
I let her have her minute. Then I asked her the only question that mattered: isn’t she ready to feel this way every day, or even just once a week, instead of saving it for one day and then hanging the dress in the back of a closet for good?
I was describing my work to someone recently and what came out was this: I help women see themselves for who they really are. The clothes are just the outside part. The real work happens in what she feels when she loves looking at her own reflection.
That feeling is not a splurge. It’s not an indulgence you apologize for. It’s what happens when a woman stops asking for permission to be seen and just lets herself be seen.
You don’t need family money for this. You need your own permission. And if you’re ready to find out what that feels like, fit refinement is where it starts.