I'm Not Pretty

Recently, I realized that I've reached an important turning point in my life. The point where, though I still love shopping for clothes (because, hi, have we met?), I'd rather spend time stalking furniture and reading architecture and interior design blogs/magazines. Then, when I actually leave my apartment and actually see people, I realize that girls in Texas are cute...and that is not me.

To elaborate: the girls here are adorable. They wear cute and colorful clothes, they're sweet and sexy, their hair is done, their nails is did, and they might even be wearing a swipe of pink lipstick or winged eyeliner. This is just out at the supermarket. And, to reiterate, that is not me.

Sometimes, when I'm surrounded by all the cute and all the pretty, it makes me really self-conscious and suddenly very aware of myself. I don't like to tie up my hair, much less curl or straighten or style it. I rarely have painted fingernails, and though I always have my toes some interesting color (currently Chanel Peridot - aka sometimes gold, sometimes green), I let them get chipped and don't really think about redoing them. I wear all my flare on my hands and wrists, arm partying and arm swagging or however it's called now - but I never wear big dangly earrings, and I try to avoid chunky necklaces. And most importantly, I wear a wide variety of colors, ranging from neutrals and jeans to black and gray. Colorful, yes?

So. Even though I generally know who I am and what I'm comfortable with, I still get really uncomfortable in my own skin when I'm around all the pretty girls, like I'm a teenager again, in the worst way. (Although, let's be real for a second, almost all parts of being a teenager are the worst.) Coming back to my apartment, I feel the need to immediately get online and buy some new clothes so that I don't have to feel that way again, later. The strangest mix of panic of NEED TO BUY NOW + dread of OMG NO MONIES + catharsis of fastidiously planning mental outfits against the glare of my laptop takes over me, and for a while, I become a shopping/fashion robot-zombie.

After an hour or two of incessant scrolling, clicking, adding to cart, and, oh yeah I forgot this other website!, repeat ad nauseum, the panic settles down, and I realize that I don't want to wear the bright and colorful and trendy and pretty clothes that I see. I want a few nice bags, a couple of pairs of nice shoes, some nice key pieces of jewelry, comfortable and nonfussy undergarments, and, above all, a really nice place to live.

When I'm able to calm down from my initial internal freak-out of self-doubt, it always makes me want to read more, write more, get back into yoga, and love on my dog. The last of which is the only truly easy thing to do.