I Can Feel The Bug of Fashion Nagging At My Heels

God I miss fashion!

I miss dressing up, doing my hair and makeup, bouncing to music, and spending a few minutes just pleasuring my heart by enhancing the natural beauty of my face and body.

I’ve gotten out of the habit mostly because of the pandemic, but also because I’ve been depressed and lazy. I cut my hair off last year, because I was genuinely doing everything I could to hide my femininity, I wanted to make myself as unappealing to men as possible.

But as I look at this photo, I see a girl who was often more confident then she realized, stronger than she knew, and far more powerful than she was able to comprehend at the time, and I miss that girl.

I miss that version of myself, because she was doing things, her journey was validated by the existence of other people in her world, and my existence is so different than hers. My existence is filled with isolation, and there have been versions of me that have experienced this before, but this person that I am today is brand new to this world.

She is a woman rediscovering all the parts of herself that were broken by rape, abuse, bullying, and trauma. She is the girl who is picking up the pieces and putting bandages on the wounds, while trying to find a way to extricate the cancer that is trauma.

I am confused often about whether or not I am doing the right thing, and even when things pop up to remind me that yes, I am on the right path, as soon as those pocket reminders pass, I feel like I forget again.

I have gotten comfortable with validation, but I am also feeling my body, mind, and soul, craving more of it, because it makes me feel good, and I have spent too much of my life not feeling good.

Now that I am in this place where I am creating content, ironically, a lot of “free” time, is spent wondering what I can do, what I can birth out of myself, such as this post.

I realized today that I miss fashion, and so I am writing about it, and it feels like everything in my life has just become content for the blog or the podcast, and that’s the part. Where do I begin and where does Loud Mouth Brown Girl end? Are we the same person? Are we different versions of the same person? At what point does my blog become a brand, and my brand become my identity? And what if I want to disentangle myself from this brand, is that ever going to be possible? Is it ever going to be necessary?

I miss fashion, and that’s why I am writing this post, but in the writing about the missing of the fashion, I realize that there comes with the idea of fashion, so much that I’d never thought about before.

My clothing today is absolutely a statement on my emotional health, and I realize that maybe it’s always been that way and I just didn’t full understand that this how I was presenting myself physically, was more about how I was feeling emotionally.

Now that I recognize that, I also am being made aware of the fact that I miss pretty clothes. I miss the act of standing in my bathroom and getting dressed while listening to the radio. I miss unintentionally setting up good vibes for the day by dancing as I applied my makeup to my face.

About two weeks ago I bought myself a brand new beautifully red lipstick, and I absolutely love it. It’s my favorite lipstick, and it brings me so much complete and total joy. Putting it on my lips gives me this jolt of excitement even if I a not going anywhere, which is why I am trying not to use it too often, because I don’t want that feeling to wear out.

There is something to be said for getting up in the morning and dressing as if you are going to work, even if you’re working from home every single day. It can be annoying because it’s a lot of work to get up, take the shower, find an outfit, do your makeup, get dressed, and emotionally prepare you for the day when you’re not actually going anywhere.

But I am going to make a concentrated effort to try and do this on a regular basis. At the very least for days when I have Zoom meetings, not because I care what other people think of me, but because dressing for the day puts me in a good mood.

I’ve been avoiding good moods for most of the last year, because I was in part, enjoying letting the pain out, letting the misery out. I’ve been enjoying the act of just sitting in my sadness, but I am getting kind of bored with it. Like, my brain is waking up a little more every day and going “oh, so we’re still doing this? That’s cool, I’m just going to check out for awhile.” And the checking out is bothering me.

I don’t want to emotionally check out on myself or others for that matter, I want to be clued in to what is happening around me, but the thing is that being clued in is very difficult for me.

Being clued in means knowing how other people feel, and I am still not very good at not taking other people’s emotions onto my own shoulders. I still feel responsible for what other people are going through, even if it has nothing to do with me. Death and murder, these things affect me to the point of overwhelming emotions, and then I am not just focused on my own pain, but the trauma of also just trying to exist in this world.

This tells me that I need to get intentional about my time. I need to focus my energies on harnessing my intentions so that when I am spending time in the morning getting ready, I am not letting my anxieties and depressions take over my good mood.

I’ve gotten comfortable with the sadness, and it’s gotten to the point where I have to focus on being intentional about fighting for my own happiness. That means getting off my fat, lazy, comfortable ass, (me not you dear reader,) and stand up in the bathroom mirror and look at the face that I have largely ignored for two and a half years.

It means that I have to do my hair and makeup, not because I want the rest of the world to pay attention to me, but because I personally, want to take the time to celebrate and decorate myself which is at the foundation, is what makeup is about for a lot of women and men.

I’ve never seen makeup as a mask, even though in my past it was, I’ve seen it as decoration, and I want to remember that when I do my makeup from now on. I am not hiding my pain, I am decorating my joy.

I don’t know if this is going to work, but I am going to try it everyday, and to keep myself accountable I will be posting pictures every single day for Outfit of the Day on Instagram. This is a very stressful project for me, because I don’t necessarily like my face right now. I’ve gained a lot of weight over the last couple of days, and even though I’m comfortable in my body, I don’t really see “me” in my face anymore.

I am hoping this project will help me find myself again, whether that means losing weight or not. But it’s an anchor, it’s something to try until I come up with another idea, what do you think, will you consider joining me?

If so leave a comment below so I can follow you on Instagram.

Sending all my love,

Devon J Hall