“clothes make the man”

i believe that i behave not entirely unlike other people. there are many elements in life, many pieces. and one finds a status quo in many, a system that works, and they put it on the backburner. this frees one up to concentrate on other pieces, pieces that perhaps one derives more enjoyment from. to some extent, we all do it. we have to.

but there are pieces that deserve to be revisited from time to time. pieces that deserve to be relearned.

take, for instance, clothes.

many of you have known me for a long time. mike has known me since pre-mullet days. eric has known me since high school. petunia, since college. john and kurt since grad school. all have known various pieces of me, various versions of tripp.

it took rachael many years, but she has slowly weaned me into more ‘adult’ (read: non-baggy) clothes. clothing (and a style) that has been my uniform for years: a pair of jnco’s and a t-shirt. i’m good with that; after years of looking and poking, i have found brands i really like now, brands that look good and fit me.

water under the bridge a bit.

because the real issue, to me, is that i never wear out clothes. and i never really get rid of clothes. why would i? they still fit me, they are still perfectly good.

and last week, i wore a shirt that i have had since junior year of high school. high school. i have had the shirt almost 15 years. and you know what? i put it on and wore it to work. and felt lame the entire day. i did not enjoy wearing it.

that was that. this weekend, i got rid of it, along with some t-shirts, ties and some other shirts. i have taken the (long-overdue) approach of ‘if i don’t like wearing it, get rid of it’. there is no reason to feel less than good. there is no reason to hold on to items i will never wear or wear out of some sort of perverse guilt.

today i wore a tie to work. and unlike one of previous employers, the one who sat me down after i wore a tie to work and told me that i should no longer dress up to come to work, i have gotten compliments today from most everyone in the office. i feel good. i feel like i am dressed as i should be, as i want to be. i’m owning it. (perhaps my favorite comment was from a co-worker who seemed to marvel over the actual tie: ‘where did you find a white tie?’ as if i had performed some sort of strange magic before his eyes. i replied, lamely: ‘a store.’)

feeling good is a mindset.

and i am sure for many of you, you read this and think about how silly i am being, how slow i am to make these realizations. that’s ok — as i said to start with, sometimes it takes a while to revisit topics in life.

i’ve spent the last 6 or 8 months talking, over and over, about getting my life in shape. about getting organized and put back together the way i want to be. this is another piece of the puzzle. it’s quite pleasing to have a timeline, an end goal. and it’s even more pleasing to feel perfectly on track.

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