Women Over Fifty

When I’m half asleep in the morning I begin to compose today’s blog.  It sounds good.  I’m just not ready to write it then.  I have to get ready for the day, feed the dog, do my morning diabetes routine, eat breakfast, maybe go to Curves.  By then, I’ve forgotten what I was going to blog about.  Sigh.

So, let’s talk about clothing.  When I visit a shop that sells Elizabeth designs (Liz Claiborne for larger women) I have high hopes of finding something that really looks good.  I have several tops and dresses that have that extra something in fit and styling that make me feel good about being me.   My biggest problem with the clothing is that when you walk into that store (or section of a store) you think you’ve walked into a place that sells clothing for funerals.  It’s full of dark colors.  I like dark colors on occasion, but I love color and I wear it.

I was looking at my closet this morning.  I do the laundry.  My husband puts the clean laundry in my closet, but I don’t ask him to puzzle out how I organize it.  So, that’s what I was doing when I began to wonder how many T shirts were in my closet.  Wearable ones, not the ones I hope to grow into.

I counted 50 multi-hued polyester T shirts!  That even amazed me.  That doesn’t count the cotton Ts I wear for exercising.  I’ve admitted liking clothes.  I’ve also ranted about the difficulty of finding clothing for the fluffy woman.  So, where did I get all those T shirts?  Mostly they came from Target.  About a year ago they were selling these T shirts for around $10 each.  They were designed to fit snugly, but if I went up a size they fit comfortably.  (I just hope no one looks at the tag.)  This year I don’t see anything I want to wear.  Odd, isn’t it?

So, I have pink, yellow, green, purple, orange, black and brown T shirts.  I have T shirts with prints on them.  I even have one (From  Lane Bryant) that’s an orangy print on the front and a complementary green print on the back.  I love T shirts with a little glitter on them.  They are easy to wear.  When it’s cool, I wear them under something else for warmth. 

I don’t have a lot to wear in pale blue.  That’s because my mother wore pale blue exclusively and I never wanted to emulate her.  As an adult I used to chide her for not being very adventuresome.  She always made her own dresses from the same pattern, just a different blue print.  She said she knew just where to take it in or let it out so it would fit her.  It was a shirt dress pattern, so she wasn’t out of fashion entirely.  

I sometimes would buy my mother enough material for a dress, including buttons, thread, and backing for the belt I knew she’d make to match it.  Once I snuck in a fabric that had lilacs printed on it.  More than a few of the lilacs were lavender or pink.  It took her over a year to make up that dress.  She wore it when I went to visit her.  I know she wore it, though, because when I went for my last visit - to clean her house after she died - that dress was in her closet and it was faded.  

So, I never wanted to be my mother.  I wanted to be myself, and obviously I am.  I want my daughters to be who they want to be too.  I encouraged them to be individuals, and I swear to you they are.  

So, there’s my wardrobe.  A few nice dresses and tops from Elizabeth.  A lot of cheap tops in colors from Target.  A lot of stretch jeans from Avenue.  

It would be nice if I could shop in that mall I was talking about yesterday and find all of these stores in the same place.

Marilynne

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