I feel like understanding where I’m going with my life and my various ~aesthetic goals~ are important to spitball so after thinking about where I want to be in life and WHO I want to be, I trawled Pinterest for Polyvore sets that matched the four different “me’s.” I’m a super visual learner so looking at things helps me to understand what I’m actually doing before I put it down on paper (or, um, Tumblr.)
1.
1964 Europe, wide leg pants and turtlenecks, little girl far from home.
I’m not 100% on what draws me so much to 1960′s clothing silhouttes and colours but it really gives me this vision of me in the future, living somewhere semi-rural in a little old cottage with a garden where I can work on growing my own food and a wrap around veranda. I work at a little museum for Roman history and wear tortoiseshell hoop earrings and Gorman clothes. My house is full of things that have meaning to me and nothing I eat comes from further than 200 km away.
2.
Simplicity, modernity and clean lines.
I like this one because it also feeds into the above fantasy, plus it also fuels the idea of minimalist me if I went full minimalist aesthetic. White and black, everything soft and clean and neat. Farmers markets on a Saturday morning, working as a communications advisor somewhere in government, stacks of vintage bangles to offset the simplicity of everything else. Warm and cozy winters with blankets, a fire roaring and David Attenbourgh on TV.
3.
Serenity. Earth tones and clean lines, healthy living.
This me meditates a lot. She goes to regular yoga and visits Eastern Europe on long weekends because it’s cheap. This me works as a sustainability officer and only wears natural fibers. She doesn’t eat meat anymore and has completely cut back on plastic. There is a reproduction bust of Apollo by her front door that she puts her keys on when she’s home, and a statue of Alexander the Great on her white IKEA bookshelf. Her house smells like vanilla candles.
4.
1950′s America. Simpler living, juxtaposition, turning points.
This me was born before my grandparents and lives in an apartment block in Brooklyn. She has a degree in History and still lives with her parents, stopping to pick up groceries from three different shops on the way home from her teaching job. She sews her own clothes and listens to music on a battered gramophone. Sometimes she sneaks out and rides around on motorcycles with boys who she shouldn’t hang out with. It takes her three hours to get ready in the morning.
These are all traits I can encompass into myself and pick and choose from in my 20′s. Obviously, I can’t, you know, time travel back to before I was born, but I can sew my own clothes and teach myself to cook. I can go to Yoga and stop eating meat and using plastic. I can become a museum worker or a sustainability officer and I can move to Europe if I really want. I can buy tortoiseshell earrings (in fact I own a pair already) and save up for or buy second hand Gorman. These goals are all in reach, as long as I figure out what to do and how to work for them.