How long til my soul gets it right?

Listening to: "Galileo," Indigo Girls.

Photo from this shoot.

I have some serious life updates that I wanted to tell you all, because at this point we're friends and it feels weird to omit this info from my blog, because it's going to affect it a bit.  I just found out recently that I'm not going to graduate school, at least not this fall. The news was devastating, and I am still sad because it was my huge life goal for this year. But I'm going to reapply to more schools until I get accepted into an international affairs/policy track program. In the meantime, I've decided to take a full-time position as a sales associate at a national department store retailer to make money/learn more about the business/keep myself busy during the year. 

I really have to say, I was pretty freakin' scared -- and still am a little --- to be making all these changes. I've mostly worked internships/jobs related to journalism (news writing, editing) and politics (mostly public relations), and my last job was an internship at the state Capitol (it ended a couple months ago). To be honest, I've worked in mostly media-related positions since I was in high school, so to do anything different feels like going off track or losing part of how I define myself. It's been hard to admit that the media industry has been tough for me to navigate and break into this past year.

Suffice it to say, I've never worked retail before. I know that many of you work or have worked in retail before, and I admire that. It's just that when you've never done something before, it's kind of scary to jump into the fray. After a lot of crying and soul-searching, I think this will be a good change and possibly a great learning experience for me. It also helps that the managers who hired me are really nice and seem to be very friendly and open to helping me with my goals. They mentioned a possibility to turn this experience into a career in retail management or fashion marketing, if I decide to go that way. I'm not sure how I feel about doing that yet, but it's nice to feel like I have options, which didn't seem possible a couple weeks ago.

As for blog changes, you'll see some variance in how I do my outfits.  Per my work's dress code, I have to wear all black, so you'll be seeing some of that on the blog. For a girl who loves to wear lots of color, this will be a huge sartorial challenge, but I'm going to make the most of it. I promise I'll still do outdoor shots and dresses and fun outfits, too, and I think, if anything, my posts will become more prolific as I navigate this new job and try to stretch the limits of this dress code.

It feels better just writing this out and telling you all. I spent a lot of time writing and deleting various drafts of this post, because it felt like I was pouring too much of my soul out, but sometimes things just need to be said. It's been hard not to mention it on here for the longest time, but I had to know for sure what was going on before I said anything. This blog has been one of my only creative writing outlets in the past year, and it's been incredible to have so much support from many of you. I hope you'll continue reading as I start this strange, new adventure. :)

Love,

You can't take it with you

Photo credit: Myself, storefront in NYC, March 2009

" Maybe it'll stop you trying to be so desperate about making more money than you can ever use? You can't take it with you, Mr. Kirby. So what good is it? As near as I can see, the only thing you can take with you is the love of your friends. "

- Grandpa, 'You can't take it with you' (1938)

I've been pretty fluid with money the last couple of months. My new job requires me to a) drive a lot and b) be in business dress for most of the week, and I've had to make up for the gaps in my wardrobe.

It used to be that whatever college apparel, random good purchases and Nikki’s castoffs would tide me over, but my new work calls for more suits, sweaters, hose – things that many post-collegiate women have to deal with buying all the time. Add to that a mix of stress and triggers (people at my office do quite a bit of online shopping) and you’ve got a bit of a spending monster.

But I feel like I need to rein it in a little before it gets out of control. Jeremiah and I aren’t in major debt or terribly anxious about our finances, but we are making sure that until both of us have full-time, salaried jobs that we don’t spend frivolously. I hate using the word recessionista or frugalista or anything with the suffix –ista attached, but that is essentially our financial philosophy right now and will probably be a guiding influence through most of our lives.

Part of this is based on the fact that I impulsively bought a new pair of boots yesterday and felt pretty guilty about it. I don’t own a pair of boots (I was never a fan until I saw these), but I don’t necessarily need these boots and I don’t need to add more bulk to my increasingly scary closet. I don’t beat myself up often and I’m not that big of a penny-pincher that I can’t enjoy shopping. But I want to get these “I want, I want, I want” demons out of my psyche.

So I decided last night, as I was folding our laundry, that before I decide to add anything else to my closet, I will wear every item in my closet at least once. This will allow me to:

1) Re-fall in love with items that I don’t use all the time (like my orange Akris dress!)

2) Come up with interesting clothing combinations (especially since it’s finally getting colder) that will be reflected in the daily photos

3) Realize which items I finally need to ditch. (This might benefit Nikki because we often get each others hand-me-downs. Hooray for being the same size!)

4) And maybe it will make realize that acquiring things isn’t going to make me more than momentarily happy, and that I should be spending more time on things that I actually love: reading, writing, photography, trivia, hanging out with my friends, family and my husband.

So this will be an interesting experiment, and – I hope – I will learn a lot about myself and the ways I should spend and save.

Hairstory

Tomorrow is my day off and I am getting a haircut. It has been 16 months since my last haircut, and this particular upcoming cut is fraught with a good dose of nostalgia.

Part of it is because of the history that lapsed between my last cut and now. I got the cut in July 2008 when I was living in New York for a summer internship. I impulsively stepped into a salon in Chinatown, randomly picked a cut, trusted a kind stylist and 9 inches were cut off the length. Though I ultimately ended up disfavoring the haircut (the blunt angles became too difficult for me to style everyday because I couldn't commit to the upkeep), losing so much weight felt so cathartic. My hair length in those 16 months eventually became a personal measuring stick: When I look back at the photos of me in the past year, I see my hair and how it fits into that particular timeline. September came along and my hair was one inch longer and I was engaged (and newly committed to regrowing my hair). Two inches saw a memorable trip to DC. Two and a half saw our engagement party. Four inches saw the stress of trying to graduate with two degrees, 50 hour work weeks, job searching and wedding planning. Five inches, graduation. Five and a half, a marriage. And so on.

Another part of my emotion over this particular haircut is that so much of my self-confidence is how I view myself, and I've always viewed myself with long brown hair. It was how I defined my self-image. When I originally got it cut that July, it was out of a frustration with how it looked and trying to find a desperate way to fix that. Watching it regrow made me see my ever-changing physical transformation and was like watching some facet of my personality come back.

I am excited. So, I've got my haircut picked out, and I don't think I will become brazen in the chair like last time and want a drastic change. But I think I will enjoy the release that comes in the process.


What about you? Do you have a physical feature that defines the way you view yourself? Have you ever done anything to transform it, or do you like it the way it is?