ACCOUNTANT BY DAY

Yesterday I went over to the Legends shopping center because I realized I have no fall or winter clothing. I’ve lost over 40 pounds since last fall, and all my old gear has been given away or simply tossed. This was simultaneously awesome and crappy. Awesome, because getting skinnier rules, and crappy, because trying to find cheap but nice transitional size clothes to wear to work is a major pain in the ass. I mean, I’m not going to head over to Brooks Brothers or Ann Taylor to drop beaucoup money on something I may only wear for 2 months. I haven’t ever shopped at those places anyway, and now is certainly not the time to start, you know?

So the other day I stopped in to the Old Navy at Merriam Town Center because I needed new jeans and figured maybe I could pick up some cheap sweaters and slacks while I was at it. But the problem I was running into is that I am looking for things that I can look at least marginally presentable in at work, and because Old Navy is the naughty younger sibling of bland middle child Gap and overachiever firstborn Banana Republic, it markets its clothing to what it thinks the younger demographic wants. And apparently what the younger demographic wants is some slutty ass freaking shit that barely covers your tits and ass.

I could not justify making a single purchase, because nothing I saw there, even the more conservative items, was remotely work appropriate if left as-is. Everything I tried on was either cut down to the middle of my chest, or barely crept up over my belly button. I’ve experienced the same frustration with clothes I’ve bought elsewhere. Because I’m on the small side, I have pathetically short arms and a short torso, but shopping in the young people section for smaller items is a constant problem for me because young people no longer have any desire for their clothing to actually cover their bodies. I have a couple of shirts I bought from J.C. Penney that I’m too embarrassed to wear to work without a sweater vest or something, because they are just slightly too low cut. I mean, would it have killed them to put just ONE MORE button at the top?

And it had me sort of wondering, I mean, have I turned into a major prude at the age of 25? Because I would not be caught dead in a sweater that shows off my tits like some of that stuff. Not even at home.

Then I went over to Legends and bought a whole new (perfectly modest) winter wardrobe for $250 at the Gap outlet store there and I had my answer. It’s not that Old Navy has changed so much. It’s me who has changed. And now I need a wardrobe befitting my new state of young urban professional blandness. In other words, I can’t seriously picture myself shopping at Hot Topic for clothes anymore. Yet five years ago, I was doing that, coloring my hair with Manic Panic, wearing trendy t-shirts with sarcastic geeky sayings, and thinking all that shit was totally the height of cool. It was somehow important to me then to look different from others, like it was the only way I could tell people that there was anything unique about me. Ha, ha! Just like all the other kids doing the same exact shit. OH THE IRONY!

So I realized, I have graduated. Not just in the sense of rejecting the youthfully risque Old Navy for the benign and comfortably acceptable Gap, but I’ve gradually undergone some kind of mental transformation where I don’t miss my old ways very much, even if I haven’t exactly rejected them either. I just stopped craving them somewhere along the way and didn’t notice as it happened. I started reading biographical nonfictions instead of supernaturally preposterous Japanese comics. I don’t feel the need to seek out offensively graphic sexual fan fiction on the internet just to torment the kid who wrote it. And I haven’t dyed my hair in years.

The funny thing is, I don’t feel bad about these things at all. It feels like a natural progression even though I swore as a little 20 year old that I would never betray myself by losing touch with my inner dweeb. Hey, in a lot of ways I’m still the weird chick I always was. But I don’t really need to act that out so much anymore. I’m comfortable with my tweedy slacks and my 10 sweaters in different styles and neutral tones so I can mix and match to my heart’s content to pretend I have more clothes than I really do. That inner dweeb will always be there. It’s just, I don’t really care anymore whether people can see her under my preppy layers!