Sometimes I just can’t let go. If you know me, you might think, oh, she’s a widow, she should hang on to her memories but what if it’s clothing whose attachment has become so extreme, that I hold on although I can’t or don’t wear it anymore. I‘ve discovered a way to let go, to break the bond between my heart’s feelings and the fabric. Painting works.
I put the leggings that were a symbol of freedom when I retired, on my work table. Those leggings that I thought outlandish, held all my hope and promise when I retired from a business career. I was free to wear whatever I wanted, bold colors and wild prints, leggings the color of the sky. I loved those leggings but after losing weight during the covid lockdown, they were no longer wearable. I had to let them go. Seeing them on my work table helped create some distance from my craving to hang on, and begin to see them as printed fabric apart from myself. When I was done painting a little watercolor swatch, I was ready. It was an action that I needed to take to be free. It brought back all of the times when I shopped in the plus-size stores and could only buy the limited colors chosen by the merchant and most of the time, not what I wanted to wear, buying what fit.
Those two t-shirts traveled the world with me and I found a way to salvage them. I cut off the front panels and re-attached them to new shirts using a thin and sticky iron-on material, sold by the yard, in a quilt shop. I am so excited to have them in my suitcase for their next adventure, returning to Hawaii in January, 2025.
I am better than this, hanging on to clothes I can no longer wear. A long time ago, I read a popular book about keeping in your wardrobe, pieces that you truly love, discarding the rest. This practice has really put a damper on my desire for new things but I am more peaceful. Many women, as they get older, stop caring about being fashionable. Maybe they never were because dressing in the suburbs where I live, is very different in big cities. I found that being stylish keeps me feeling young and enthusiastic, never frumpy. I’m not giving up this opportunity to express myself and thrive, when so much of what is changing in America makes me sad.
Sometimes I just can’t let go. If you know me, you might think, oh, she’s a widow, she should hang on to her memories but what if it’s clothing whose attachment has become so extreme, that I hold on although I can’t or don’t wear it anymore. I‘ve discovered a way to let go, to break the bond between my heart’s feelings and the fabric. Painting works.
I put the leggings that were a symbol of freedom when I retired, on my work table. Those leggings that I thought outlandish, held all my hope and promise when I retired from a business career. I was free to wear whatever I wanted, bold colors and wild prints, leggings the color of the sky. I loved those leggings but after losing weight during the covid lockdown, they were no longer wearable. I had to let them go. Seeing them on my work table helped create some distance from my craving to hang on, and begin to see them as printed fabric apart from myself. When I was done painting a little watercolor swatch, I was ready. It was an action that I needed to take to be free. It brought back all of the times when I shopped in the plus-size stores and could only buy the limited colors chosen by the merchant and most of the time, not what I wanted to wear, buying what fit.
Those two t-shirts traveled the world with me and I found a way to salvage them. I cut off the front panels and re-attached them to new shirts using a thin and sticky iron-on material, sold by the yard, in a quilt shop. I am so excited to have them in my suitcase for their next adventure, returning to Hawaii in January, 2025.
I am better than this, hanging on to clothes I can no longer wear. A long time ago, I read a popular book about keeping in your wardrobe, pieces that you truly love, discarding the rest. This practice has really put a damper on my desire for new things but I am more peaceful. Many women, as they get older, stop caring about being fashionable. Maybe they never were because dressing in the suburbs where I live, is very different in big cities. I found that being stylish keeps me feeling young and enthusiastic, never frumpy. I’m not giving up this opportunity to express myself and thrive, when so much of what is changing in America makes me sad.