Sartorial choices

Around New Year's I packed up the black clothes. In response, a friend asked me if this meant I was feeling different. I'm not really sure of the answer to that. In one way, I do feel different. I felt like the black clothes helped signal to people that I was fragile and not ready to engage in regular-world activities, and now I feel more capable of doing that. It doesn't mean, though, that I'm done grieving or that I'm suddenly much happier. I do have days when I am not enormously sad, for which I am most grateful. On the other hand, I still feel sad almost every single day, and that is not my regular temperament.

On a more practical note, packing away all those black clothes meant I had to find other clothes. Since I've been living in Miami for the past three winters, I suddenly realized that I only owned one non-black, long-sleeved shirt, which did not seem an optimum situation for a work wardrobe. (It's probably not optimum for any wardrobe.) This prompted many rounds of thrift-store shopping, but I've finally got enough clothes.

Because I like the simplicity of my all black wardrobe, my friend M and I decided to try the 333 project, in which you chose 33 pieces of clothing to wear for 3 months. You pack up everything else, and in 3 months you can rotate in other things to adjust for the season. There are rules about what counts (a pair of shoes is one item, socks and underthings don't count), but following the rules to the letter doesn't seem like the critical part. Instead, I like the idea of wearing all the things in my closet, knowing that they fit and are flattering. In addition, there's room in my closet, I can get dressed quickly in the morning, and I actually spend less time thinking about my clothes than I did before. M and I haven't precisely hit 33, but we've both streamlined our closets to about 7-9 outfits, plus shoes and coats, which is pretty amazing to me.