It's Quite A Ride… Stories With Jenn

I have this pair of jeans. I bought them at a local thrift shop forever ago and yet I have only worn them a couple of times. They’re straight leg mom jeans with the most outrageous blue, yellow, and red flowers painted across the front of them. They feature deep pockets and ripped knees. These jeans are marvelous! They have been folded in my dresser drawer, calling me for months, but there they continue to sit. That is, until today.

Today I paired the jeans with a bright yellow hoodie and yellow shoes to match. I added some giant yellow earrings and for the entire day I have been beaming like the sunshine herself! These jeans one hundred percent don’t flatter my figure, but they do everything for my soul. As it turns out, this is a lot more important and it feels way better.

It wasn’t always this way. I look back to years in my past where I would have done anything to fit in. We all know the story. I went through the grade school teasing that turned to high school bullying at a time when you just didn’t talk about it.  I went into my twenties afraid of everything, without the tools to understand that women should have standards and demand certain things for themselves. Worst of all, I did everything I could to be just like everyone else, a cookie-cutter cutout of whatever the norm was around me. My gypsy soul screamed at me for years to stop.

By the time I started to listen to what my soul was trying to tell me, and to understand what all those adages meant about being your own authentic self, I was well into my forties. I endured so many unnecessary painful moments and yet, I look at everything that brought me to a day like today where I put on the over-the-top mom jeans, and gloriously yellow hoodie, and I feel alive!

It is truly amazing how much a bright outfit can elevate your energy vibration. It also has the added benefit of boosting people around you. It’s really something when I walk into my local Wal-Mart and the employees tell me how much they love my style and that they always watch for me to come in so they can see what kind of bright outfit I’ll be wearing. I suppose this also goes a long way to say that I spend way too much time at Wal-Mart! I do find it interesting that so many people tell me how much they love how bright and colorful I am, and yet I don’t see any of them doing the same.

There was one fabulous lady I ran into in Wal-Mart that was wearing a floor length hippie, tie-dye dress and when I went to tell her how much I loved her style, she looked at me and said, “I fucking love your hair!” I laughed out loud! I love my hair too, short, spiked, and sassy.

It isn’t always so positive. Disgust is a hard emotion to hide from the face, but I just move on. I’m not for everyone. Regardless of how I am perceived by those around me, I love feeling comfortable in my own skin. I like being ok. When you live the human experience, you know that feeling like this isn’t a constant so when it’s there, you have to bask in it.

At the end of the day, all I can say is, mom jeans… who knew!