When I was 19 or 20, I sewed myself a wool dress for medieval re-enactments. I hated it almost as soon as I put it on. The bodice was cut wrong; the lacing was uneven; the colour was garish; the front closure was historically inaccurate; the embellishments were sewn on with terrible thread. Wearing it, I was constantly aware of its myriad flaws.
Then in my twenties I hit my adult metabolism and didn’t fit into any of my old clothes anymore. I gave my old dresses to my foster mother, who sells costumes for a living, and the green dress sold. It entered the local medieval re-enactment secondhand economy.
Every time I go to an event, someone different is wearing my green dress. It draws my eyes because it’s a lovely colour and the fabric—real wool and enough of it—moves beautifully with the wearer’s body. I never recognize it at first, because every wearer has worn it a different way; it can be mixed and matched, dressed up and down, moved around a good century of history. From ten feet away its lacing looks elegant, its embellishments beautiful gracenotes. I think: Oh my god, that dress looks beautiful. Wait a minute, that’s MY DRESS.
That dress teaches me, every time I see it, to stop looking at myself through such critical eyes. That dress doesn’t just look good, it looks better than most other dresses in its category, because I put in the time and the effort (including using pliers to force a needle through six layers of wool) to make sure it was done right.
It’s my reminder that sometimes the things I do are actually good, and if I indulge my natural tendency to criticize myself in everything, I’ll end up missing when I’m actually awesome.
amandla
2087
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