June 20, 2009

I don't think I'd realized how much weight I'd lost until Alireza's visit. I should correct myself, as it was not a lot of weight, ten, fifteen pounds top. But I guess fifteen pounds lost from a 5'8'' frame, if I am being honest about my height, is substantial. It was enough weight and ultimately inches to leave me with a closet full of tens of thousands of dollars worth of ill-fitting designer garments.

For a while I was devastated.

The symbolism is quite real and obvious. This year I have changed jobs, homes, and boyfriends. And what I have traded, if traded is the proper word, is not better. Just different. I spent the last five years accumulating and acquiring. Friends, homes, chairs, tables, shoes, bags, iPods, MP3s, objects, trinkets, bowties, hats, toys, kitchen appliances, and so on and so on and so on. If acquiring were a religion then Ben and I were devoted followers. We prayed at that church.

This is not a judgment call on that lifestyle. I work in a sector that is dedicated to consumption. And I will never lose my faith in the material object. I think all things created by people, shirts, chairs, homes, art, are worthy of celebrating and appreciating. Creating things is the essence of living. We make our worlds with our hands and we have every right, responsibility even, to surround ourselves with beautiful things. This goes for people too.

But I had gone a little crazy methinks.

So in thinning down I now see the need to thin down everything. Which includes my wardrobe.

Any friend of mine will talk about my dress. My earliest memories are of clothes. I have always used the visual of dressing and costume as my number one source of expression. I dressed for reactions long before I scribed for them.

And now I am letting many go. I have no choice. My Etro suits, simply, do not fit. And they're not capable or worth altering.

I saved about twenty of my sixty (button-down) shirts to be tailored. Alireza did ten of them for my birthday gift. And the rest went into a pile. Etro suits and ties. Paul Smith shirts and pants. Bergdorf coats and cashmere sweaters. Kid Robot hoodies and shirts. A Bathing Ape hats. Patterns and colors and prints and textures. My life, my costumes, my uniforms, of the past five years ready to be categorized and put up for auction on eBay.

And it is OK. I wear more simple things now. My style is more relaxed because my comfort with my body has changed. I have a natural ease. I want my eyes and my smile and face and my tattoo to be what people react to. At least, first, that is. I don't feel the need to cover everything up or make such a statement. I've invested in some more classic looks. I am less buttoned-up. Less clownish.

Now I will never give up this game of acquiring, especially clothes, shoes, and bags, but I have slowed down. And while I sit here in day glow green Adidas sneakers some might giggle and laugh at this proclamation. But they don't know the emotional attachment I have had to my clothing and they don't know the freedom I feel from letting it go. Letting it go without replacements. That's the kicker. What I have will do me. For now, at least.

Yesterday I had on a pair of green loafers, Tods, the ones I bought, on sale, for my birthday gift to myself. A woman, on 7th Avenue, stopped me to remark about them. She said they were the color of life. The color of trees. Her favorite color.

Last year I would have paired these green shoes with pink pants, yellow belt, blue shirt. And I would have pulled it off. This year I wore them with a tattered grey cotton Club Monaco sweater and cut-off cords from Uniqlo. More casual. Less expensive. Comfortable.

The new me. Less money in my pocket. Less clothing in my closet. Less color on display. But deep, very deep, colors inside.