cute dresses and sparkly skin.

Sometimes I put on sparkly lotion.  (I don’t care if that was a style in 1980 and not in 2015.)

I feel under dressed without my earrings.  My bracelets dangling and stacked and clinking together on my wrist is a little joy to me.

I dress this way because I want to dress this way.

I wear my favorite black dress on a day I don’t even plan to leave my house.

It’s what I do.

And some days – it’s not what I do.

Some days I wear the same running skirt all day long that I fell asleep wearing the night before.

It’s how it is.  (And I hadn’t even gone running.  I just wore the attire but had none of the follow through.)

I have four daughters.

(I know.  I know.  It’s number I can hardly reconcile myself to most days.)

And I want them to feel comfortable in their own skin.  Happy with their own sense of style.

I don’t really know how to do that.

But I’m pretty certain a gigantic step in the right direction is to feel comfortable in my own skin.  To like my own sense of style.

I think about my own mother.

And what she thought of herself and what she wore and what she talked about and how long she spent in front of a mirror and how much make up she wore (or did not wear) and I have to think that a part of her sense of self was passed on down to me as her only daughter in a house full of sons and so if I feel a certain way about myself then it’s possible my daughters will feel a certain way about themselves and that’s why it all matters and how it all fits and so I think about all of this.

Maybe my mom went on diets.  I don’t remember.  I do recall her eating cottage cheese on a lettuce leaf with pears on top.  Which is gross.  Really gross.  But I don’t think it was diet food.  I think she just liked it.  (My dad, however, once consumed daily bottles of Slim Fast before my wedding in order to lost weight.  Except.  He drank the Slim Fast, intended to be a meal replacement, WITH the meal he was eating, as a beverage addition.  I don’t think he read the directions.)   My mom didn’t wear make up often and she smiled a lot and she never ever, not once in my entire life, commented about my weight or implied that there was anything to lose or to gain.  The same was true for her own weight.  If she weighed herself compulsively or discussed diets and pants sizes obsessively, she certainly never did it within my listening ears.  She dressed comfortably and tidy, but I’d never call her trendy.  (And neither would she.)  Her haircuts stayed the same for ages I think, not withstanding the random perm or coloring every decade or so.

I don’t know.

She was just …. normal.

You know?

Not obsessed.  Not preoccupied.  Her life was full and she was happy and she served us generously and she liked to shop and she did love to buy clothes and I was the happy recipient of those purchases.  (I still miss that extravagant birthday tradition.  The one that helped shape my wardrobe every summer.)

So I want to say to my daughters – be comfortable.  Wear your smile and wear your joy and let that beauty be enough.

And it’s okay to like pretty colors.  It’s okay if grey is your favorite t-shirt color too.  You can like dresses and you can like gym shorts and you can wear whichever one you want.

London and Mosely and I created a silly little acronym last summer to help them make good clothing choices.

It’s M.A.C.  (I told you it was silly.)

Modest

Appropriate

Comfortable

Modest – I think you know what this means in your own house.  For us it’s no straps or undergarments showing and no stomach showing and shorts that are not too short.

Appropriate – This is an appropriateness to the occasion.  For example, no swimsuits to church.  If it’s a wedding, you cannot wear running clothes.

Comfortable – Can you move freely?  Do you feel good in that outfit?

The order of importance is ranked here too for us.

Modesty trumps all the choices and sometimes an outfit has to be appropriate more than it has to be comfortable.  (This is the current problem ruling in our home – my big girls strongly dislike dressing up right now.  Their argument to wearing a dress to attend a special event is that it’s just not comfortable.  But I have say – their camo pants are not always appropriate to the occasion.)

I know that my being okay with my own clothing choices and my own weight and my own sense of self is not a cure all.  I know that I waver on those internally myself too.  I know I can’t rescue my girls completely from self doubt and comparisons and wishing for what they don’t have – brown hair or curly hair or smooth skin or olive complexion or fill in the blank.

But I am hopeful that a satisfied mom is a helpful starting point.   And so I want to be that woman.  Comfortable.  Concerned with more than my attire and my skin and my hair.  And also happy to sling a little glitter and a little shine when the evening suggests it.  Or when my mood dictates it.

I want to be alright.  Normal.  For my daughters to forget these details about me one day even.  To try to rack their memories to see if they can recall mom ever weighing herself and to hope that maybe they won’t even recall that being a part of our lives.  (I actually purposely do not own a scale.)  I want them to measure their sense of satisfaction in their own bodies not by numbers, but by comfort levels and positive feelings and healthy eating habits.