Coming to college means being able to reinvent yourself. New people, new campus, which could mean a new wardrobe for some.
As long as it can fit inside your tiny wardrobe.
For me, that meant buying more clothes that could withstand the snow and less summer dresses. I am a California girl which means this new reinvention time also included learning what a real season would be and how to dress for it.
Update: the humidity gives you more than a highlighted glow, but fall really does make you dance in the leaves.
I am up for the challenge, but let’s just say I did not tackle hot rain like I thought I would.
My last year of high school was a time where I got a lot more comfortable with my body and was able to feel more confident about expressing my emotions with my clothes. I really got into thrifting and buying the funky jeans I never would have thought I would wear.
Coming to college kind of threw that mentality off.
I was not eating the food I was used to (at home I grew up extremely healthy and am still trying to figure out dorm food), I was not being as active as I used to or wanted to be, and also, I was (and still am) going through an extreme change. My mind, as well as my confidence in myself, was shaken.
The new environment I imagined I could thrive in, was making me unsure if I could even be myself in it. I did not wear what all the other girls in the elevators wore. Wearing my light grey corduroy pants with the weird saying baggy t-shirt I always wore back home made me feel utterly self conscious.
My confidence was being questioned and it felt regressive.
The way I could express myself without even trying was being taken from me, by me.
Now I know I am no fashionista, I am not claiming to own “the” college closet. I could not tell you the latest trends (only the ones in my head) but I do know that fashion is there for people to express themselves, to play dress up, to add a little flair in their personality.
To add a smile or bring comfort.
I did not want my simple expression to be questioned as much as it was. I wanted it to be a free flowing decision like it was at home. One that morphs with me as I evolve and change and become an even more stressed out college student!
Plus I was doing my own laundry, if I was going to dirty it up and wash it again later, I wanted it to be worth it.
I think that was one of the points of college though, and still is for me. That the confidence and assurance inside myself I grew in my small environment back home, needed to be tested. Although I do not love the process, in few words, one has to trust it.
Staying strong to myself is difficult, especially when it leads to wearing pumpkin socks with a rainbow striped shirt, but I have to do what makes me happy. In high school I tested my comfortability with my clothes and now I am able to find comfort knowing I am being me right down to my socks.