(Originally published as a Facebook note - January, 2009)
Every morning, I spend way too much time trying to decide what to wear, so last night I decided to be proactive about things and figure it out in advance. Not that there's much of a selection; although I have more than enough clothes, mostly everything is black and white; not how I live - not how I see things - but simply how I dress.
So - while rifling through my closet - and the four black suits, six black skirts and eight white blouses - an unofficial uniform - I came upon a sweater long forgotten - that wasn't black - and thought about its story. (Note: the fact that I spend time writing "stories" for my clothing could be why it takes so long to figure out what to wear).
Anyway - it was a sweater that I loved the second I saw it - from a distance - when I was shopping one day - it caught my eye. However - the price was too high so I reluctantly let it go - left it on the shelf. Then - a few months later - surprisingly - in what seemed like a serrendipitious occurrence - it was on the sale rack! I couldn't believe it.
I examined it carefully for holes or imperfections - couldn't believe it hadn't been snagged by someone else - and rushed it to the register to pay for it and took it home, hardly believing it was mine. I put it in my dresser - among the 12 black sweaters - and it stood out. For a few weeks it was at the top of the pile - then I got another black sweater, and moved it to a different drawer where I kept "occasional" clothes - like the feather boa I had bought when playing Phyllis Diller at a costume party a few years earlier - and the scarf a friend had knitted for me which I only wore when I saw her. Then - the seasons changed - and I put all of my sweaters into storage; then I moved, and kept all of my sweaters in a storage bin... Then finally - they ended up in my closet - on hangers - even though it's a a great place to keep sweaters (because they "grow" when they are hung up and stretch beyond recognition).
But lo and behold - there it was - in all of its bizarre glory - green with black specks and rhinestone (yes, rhinestone) buttons - and I almost laughed when I saw it. "What was I thinking?," I thought (about my previous thoughts), "This is hideous." So I moved it into a "to be donated" pile where it will stay until Saturday when I make my usual trip to the Salvation Army bin in the parking lot of my the supermarket.
Lesson I Learned: Sometimes the thing you want the most turns out to be the most hideous choice you can make - so if you don't get it right away - remember that it will all turn out fine - because it wasn't meant to be and it will end up in the back of your closet where you forget it until you remove it from your wardrobe, if not your life.
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