I have now come clean to the people around me. They’ve known I’ve had a problem for a while now, but I’m able to admit it. I’ve said the words out loud and am now in the stage of asking for help.
I’m a fashion disaster.
First, I’m double-Libra which makes all fashion decisions paralyzing. Every Christmas my mother takes us shopping and my sister has to decide what pieces I want. There are a million beautiful things and choosing one feels impossible.
I’ve also chalked up my attire situation as good character – the ability to not care what I look like, to prance about with clothes that don’t match, fit well or – as one friend politely pointed out – are worn inside out. The fact that I paid little attention to my appearance meant I could focus on more “important” things – holy things, meaning-filled things, the stuff that makes life worth living. I was raised with a legacy of beauty that I haven’t always understood or appreciated.
I’ve always left beauty at the door to make more space for utility – is it useful? weighed more heavily on my Kon-Mari-ing. I would choose a builder’s grade faucet over something I loved to save a few dollars because my sensible nature elevated function over form.
Fashion, I told myself, would be a distraction, fluff and filler. To care about what things look like, rather than the nature of things, seemed a futile endeavor. After all, Jesus taught me that things aren’t what they seem.
There’s a salon nearby named Vanity. I enjoyed a fair amount of judgement upon this naming from a high perch; when I think about the meaning of being vain, it’s an illusion, being without the substance. Don’t you know vanity isn’t to be celebrated?
My early adulthood religious training instilled a strong fear of vanity. First and most obvious, the letters from Peter and Paul warning the ladies to not be tempting, to just cover it up already. And then my word-nerd self dug into the commandments and and admonishment against taking the Lord’s name in vain. Don’t you dare speak of (or for) the Lord without also having the Lord’s weight behind it. Don’t just say things that sound holy: be holy. Vanity is a grave sin, indeed.
Somewhere, in adulthood, largely by influence of Mary Oliver, I’ve questioned my inferred sense that God doesn’t bother with beauty. Have you seen the sunset from my front porch? What about the endless waves of an ocean? An old tree, roots dug deep in the middle of a bean field, refusing to be moved for the sake of efficient agri-business. Molly’s curls falling from her messy bun. The twinkle in Corri’s eye when she knows she’s funny. The Amalfi coast.
Why does God get to love beauty but I don’t?
Vanity is not the same is beauty. My fear of vanity seems to have created a practice of avoiding beauty.
Beauty magazine language of “fixing flaws” and “covering problem areas” make my toes curl. That’s vanity talking. That’s a lack of substance needing fluffed and covered. What if beauty, unlike vanity, isn’t about fluffing – or more accurately, slimming – and covering? What if beauty is about noticing? Highlighting? Celebrating?
I’m a little tired of looking terrible. At 40+ I’d like to leave my house wearing clothing without logos and team names. I want to spend a modicum of time putting myself together so that when I walk out into the world I know my worth – not because I’ve covered things up but because I spent the time framing, staging, honoring everything I’m made of. A fear of false image is fine, but the fact remains: I am made of substance. I’m here: in a body, with organs and bones and brains and matter.
I am not skin deep and neither is beauty.
Perhaps, I’ve acknowledged to myself recently, it’s time to appreciate beauty in all its forms, including my own.