Emerald City Expatriate

I started following a French style guru on Youtube. Like many, she teaches that you should love the body you have, dress for it, and rid your closet of that which is poor-fitting, doesn’t work with your lifestyle, and doesn’t make you feel great. She’s right, I thought. It’s just that simple. I have a tiny apartment – all the more reason why I don’t need to be holding onto clothes that don’t fit, or that I don’t like. Armed with this conviction, I waited for a rainy day to spend inside, and then set to work. If I couldn’t remember the last time I’d worn it, I’d try it on once more for good measure, then put it in a pile to go to Goodwill. Easy. Two hours later I was almost in tears. Two hours of brutal honesty had led to a Goodwill pile that was breaking my heart. It contained: -- A pair of trendy, expensive designer jeans I had bought my senior year of college. I had combed through a department store searching for them, after I’d seen them on a mannequin in the

When I was 23, I was doing research for a press release in the nursing ed building of the small college where I worked. On the wall of one classroom was a poster listing the symptoms of chronic low self-esteem. I displayed all of them. I berated myself: Really? That’s stuff that high school girls deal with. You should be over that by now. You’re making yourself fit this description so that you can play victim and feel sorry for yourself. But it nagged at me. Many times over my adult life, I’ve felt that I could have created more positive/desired outcomes for myself, if only I’d been more confident.  “If only,” as if it’s a decision you can just snap your fingers and make. It’s been more like a long hike, over a few tall peaks and through a lot of deep valleys. I think it really is an ongoing journey, and never a destination you fully arrive at. I also imagine a foundation of the Self, poured like concrete, in one’s youth -- cracks and holes and all. You attemp