A Retrospective

There are a lot of things I've worn that I wouldn't be caught dead in at this stage in my life, not because I'm fat now, but because, well- I mean...what the hell was I thinking?! Believe it or not, this outfit is not one of them. I would wear it minus the bridal-style veil and with slightly less dramatic make-up. I was seventeen in this picture and though I was headed for an epiphany which would save me from killing myself, I still didn't believe I would live to be thirty years old.

There weren't many things I felt confident about when I was seventeen, but my sense of style was something that caused me zero qualms. I remember the day my friend Carrie and I took these pictures in San Francisco and I remember feeling that the only powerful or commendable thing about me was the way I could wear almost anything and carry it off. Naturally there were about 180,000 San Franciscans who would have disagreed with me. But who the hell cares about them anyway? The point was how I felt about it. The point was that I could wrap this piece of Indian print cloth that my mom gave me around my hips, knot it, and call it a skirt. If I had the body for it now, I'd wear this outfit today.

Sometimes, it was getting dressed everyday that kept me going. The love of texture in clothes and makeup, the fun of making fun of fashion gave me pleasure. The colors that could be combined, the little pieces of theater my garments could inspire. I could be anything I wanted to if I dressed the part. For me, clothing always had the potential to confer power on the person wearing them. I could believe in myself when I dressed like a person who believed in herself.

I could get a PHD based on the power of clothing and how un-trivial it is to human beings on so many levels. In fact, the only thing trivial about clothing is the ridiculous industry of labels that has been built around our need for covering our bodies which has so much less to do with shame and so much more to do with protection from the elements and a celebration of ourselves.

I didn't actually sit down to write a discourse on clothing. This is the end of the year. It is not my wont to look back with longing on the past. I don't enjoy aching for what didn't come to pass or mourning what did. As a person who has suffered life long depression, it might be easy to suppose this would be my normal mode: to regret, to be sad for the past, to worry at the unsatisfying fraying corners of life. It is absolutely because I deal with depression every day that I work harder than most (I believe) not to become enmeshed in self pity, sorrow, or mourning.

The end of the year, for me, is a pleasurable opportunity to assess my life's progress. Mostly it's an opportunity to measure how far I've come away from the trenches. I like to laugh at myself a little, learn from my stumblings, and think about how I want to move forward as the new year dawns. I'm not the only one getting introspective. Alice at FutureGirl is also looking inward as well as forward. A long time ago I used to scoff at the idea that a new year meant anything. I saw time (or thought I did) as a continuous ongoing never ending collection of days into nights into weeks into years. What makes tomorrow a fresh start? Why do we draw the line every year at the 365th day and say "tomorrow is a new year, a fresh start!"?

It's just tomorrow.

I'm not sure when I started feeling the renewal at the new year's approach. I think it started catching me in 1998. (The year I predicted in a journal that I would have one boy child and no other children.) Ten years ago. I started feeling the lifting of the spirit at the prospect of a clean slate. I started making resolutions, even though I don't really believe in punishing one's self when resolutions don't work out.

I like resolutions because they are powered by hope. Hope is something none of us can live completely without. One universal factor in suicides is that they've lost all hope. I think of resolutions as a great declaration of hope. Making resolutions is about voicing intentions, seeing how we want to be and coming up with a plan for manifesting positive change. When you are at the bottom of the dark, you don't make resolutions because there's no point. If you don't think you will live another ten years what difference does it make if you keep smoking, keep eating crap, and become obese? It makes no difference. Why should you stop hurting yourself if you have no future?

January is my month. The month I was born. A month of renewal. It's a time when all of nature shows it's bones. Pestilence is killed by the cold (unless you live in the south or California, or Australia) We all have a chance to rebuild. I love January best of all months. It seems that everyone spends January in quiet meditation.

I have a lot of work to do this year. I wanted to end this post with a current picture of myself. But I can't. I can't bear to do it. I will leave it blank. The blank represents what I can achieve in the next twelve months to reclaim myself physically and mentally. For two years I have been living in fear. I am going to walk away from that now.