Over the years (18 to be exact) I’ve tossed up what I want to do with my life.
In kindergarten I wanted to teach ballet and be a mom; in my imagination I conjured a strong lady who was graceful and had her shit together, and coincidentally didn’t look a thing like me. In fourth grade I wanted to be an archeologist. I thought that being a historical wizard would make anyone feel powerful (I still believe this) and that I’d grow creaky and wrinkly, digging up and brushing off bones that would’ve lapped me tenfold if we were two tree stumps with rings of years and years and years. Then I painfully struggled through an ancient history class and mentally walked down different hallways.
Being a teacher would be awesome, and what better job advertisement than sitting in classrooms for over 12 years? Think of all the ways you could make that one nightmare class you took 10x better than that teacher did!! And getting to spread your sense of humor with a captive audience that you’re a pseudo-parent to? All signs point to yes please. But I kept wandering down hallways. Well, more like running and peaking in all the doors. Justin Bieber’s personal traveling masseuse? Naming nail polish colors? Professional cuddler? Video game/roller coaster tester person? Tell me more!
I once volunteered on a farm just to be with nature and get a little sun kissed, not with any actual plans in my back pocket that I needed to know anything related to botany for. I'd love to get paid for my run on sentences, or maybe one day an acclaimed splatter painter is what the world will need. Reading for a living would be my idea of heaven where I would pinch myself after every chapter, so maybe it’s good that it’s not a thing. To my knowledge…
Growing up in a town where everyone was heavily encouraged to apply their skills or hobbies into a plan ending in monetary gain and bragging rights to our schools, I felt wrong to toss up ideas of jobs I had zero experience in.
I didn’t take science my senior year of high school but I had the audacity to look up to the nurses at the children’s medical transition housing I volunteered at? To avoid blank confused stares of most of the people in my grade I kept that one to myself. And then there’s the one I always stuck with. Not because I pushed myself to, but in all the tossing up of ideas and letting occupations catch my attention like a high functioning squirrel, I kept coming back to one. That one is fashion.
My style icons are most people in bands. Without totally pointing fingers… Hayley Williams of the band Paramore. This loud-haired girlbomb always wears whatever she pleases and her unpredictable outfits shoot beams of happiness that make rooftops shake and floors crack.
Concert fashion is reckless and unabashed because there’s a crowd of people cheering them on, thus gaining them confidence in whatever they’re wearing. Clothes that can speak for you, that can shout, clothes that have fun and breathe, that live up to every single letter in the Thoreau quote to “live deep and suck out all the marrow of life”. Because if you’re not doing that then what are you doing?
The self expression and emotion that can come from fashion will always bring me to my knees. And some people think that’s dumb. Probably a lot of people, but I can’t ask them all.
Similar to music and other forms of art, fashion is often seen as a vapid and wholly materialistic industry that doesn’t contribute productively to society as a whole, but just helps cycle consumerism.
At least that’s what I gather from the facial responses of some of those I tell my career path to. It gets better when I say that I don’t know what I want to do in fashion specifically, just that I want to be in it. The cherry on top is when I say that I might totally change my mind as long as I still get to wear weird outfits all the time, successfully fitting my passion for fashion into my life. But there’s enough kids going into safe business and medical majors that no adult (of the: fun has been sucked from my life and replaced by a black and white blueprint of “Success VS Failure” defined by someone who’s not me variety) gets worked up about me.
You know when you’re in a semi-hostile environment, so you kind of wear a mask to protect yourself for the time being? Like when you’re in a heavily populated area with athletes, for example, so you don’t talk about the incredible book you’re reading or your current embroidery craze because, they can run fast-- that was me at first with my major.
I didn’t want to tell anyone that I was seriously considering an art major if their most immediate thought would be slight pity at my not totally tradition choice and that the price for schools and the salaries I’ll be making may not break even.
So I’d stop putting myself in those environments. Danced at more concerts, visited more art exhibits, talked with librarians. Weekend retreats, knitting circles with older ladies so I could talk to them and not knit, escape into the worlds of my favorite shows and books where doing something other than the norm was celebrated. I don’t say my major with shame anymore. I say it with as much certainty as every kid in that Stats class I dropped out of could.
Because people don’t know you like you know you. They just don’t. But if you remember how you landed where you did, hopefully you’ll see the ground on which you stand isn’t shaky, but concrete with time and anecdotes of reasoning.
No matter what your future plans are, there are gonna be people who question or demean you or crinkle their nose, as if you haven’t thought your own life over ten or ten trillion times. And it’s okay to try something and then totally change your mind. But don’t let anyone make you feel less than worthy of your aspirations and your right to achieve them. You achieve those dreams and I’ll see you at the annual convention of “Loving Life and Loving Eggo Waffles Slightly More”.
