New Colors on My Person

Last year, I started wearing some new colors. My daughter will point at any blue article of clothing in the wild, and say it looks like it has my name written on it. Blue is my favorite color. If you took all the black, white, and gray out of my closet, it’s pretty much a sea of blue. So I got frisky and started venturing to a couple new islands.

I have to say that as an adult, it’s nice not to care about clothes the same way we did when we were young. I remember the stress of middle school and high school, especially in the fall. Back to school - more like back to the social evaluation and judgment of what everyone is wearing. Luckily, as you get older that fades each year. Then it falls off a cliff.

I recently picked up my daughter from school wearing wool socks squeezed into sandals, sweaty short shorts (I had just been on a run), and a ratty old t-shirt. Nothing matched, but no adult cared, least of all me. But my daughter noticed. Made a couple comments on the ride home she did. I cut her off after a while, explaining that not caring about what you look like is one of the perks of being an adult.

Now clothes are more about function than anything else. I only go shopping when my clothes have too many holes for public propriety. Sure, the occasional wedding might cause another private fashion show in a dressing room, but for the most part shopping for new digs becomes very sporadic.

This year, school shopping for my daughter was more important than ever. She hadn’t ever made anything of it before, but I guess she is getting to that age. I took her to Old Navy, and wow did she have fun. She bounced through the store, elated that she got to choose new ways to present herself to the world. I soon realized she could shop for herself, and gave her some space. Then, I did a little exploring myself. Perhaps there’s something on the sales rack I told myself?

As I perused the towers of perfectly folded sweaters, I was surprised by how many things caught my eye. Pretty soon I found myself in a dressing room doing some self-assessment. I’m not sure why, but blue wasn't making the cut like it normally did. Interestingly, orange was really speaking to me. Halfway through, I decided to give in and pretend that I too was going back to school. And I wanted to look good for my classmates.

Inevitably, my daughter and I ran into each other between dressing rooms. We looked over each other's stash, giving our critiques. She has such great style that all I could say was, “that’s really cute,” about a hundred times. To my surprise, she also liked my selections. Especially the new colors. I felt like I was getting approval from the coolest kid at school. I’m beaming. New day, new style. I mean, I’m a middle-aged man, so new style doesn’t mean a head-to-toe makeover. It just means a couple new shirts.

I still get a kick out of looking slightly different each time I grab one of these new outfits. Orange and green are the new kids on the block, but there’s still a lot of blue in my closet. No one will notice or care, but luckily that isn’t the point anymore. It may seem silly, but since adult life is filled with so many fears, challenges, and frustrations, why not put on a new color and feel like a kid again?