How to Get Dressed When You'd Rather Hibernate Until Spring

Questions to Ask Yourself When Getting Dressed Man Repeller Feature

March is the weirdest month. Here we spend January and February self-medicating with our minds — trying to ride the coattails of holiday season in January and practicing patience in February — then March comes around. Clocks spring forward and it is so light outside you think you can wear the small dress you pulled out of storage. You peek out your window, sure that it’s warm enough, only it’s not. Then it snows. There is so much snow and you have to put on the clothes that say nothing about who you are, the clothes that are purely functional and you wishfully put in storage last weekend. You recall a better time — last week, for example — when you actually contemplated buying a pair of sandals. What’s the use now?

Emotionally, we have had it. We’re like lava lamps on the brink of explosion. But there is no other option, so we pull up the long johns and the boots and put on the turtlenecks and the sweaters. We look towards the sky and wonder how the sun could shine so brilliantly to the chagrin of our limbs and, in staring at the sun, start to feel like we’re losing ourselves.

Like we don’t even know who we are!

Am I projecting?

The end of winter always makes me feel like I don’t know who I am anymore. So much of my relationship with clothing has to do with identity and how I outwardly project who I am, but that person changes. When clothes cannot accommodate that, I feel like an imposter. A fraud! I know this happens every winter, so I should be better about managing my own expectations — about knowing that when I think it’s over, we probably have one more storm to go. But I live in the now! And right now I just need to get by. So what do I do? I start asking the hard questions.

Why do you feel like you’ve lost yourself? (NO MORE JEANS AND BIG, LONG JACKETS, PLEASE!)

Okay, what would you rather be wearing? (I’m not actually sure, I think that’s why I feel like I’ve lost myself.)

You do realize this has nothing to do with clothing, right? (Yes, obviously, but the mind clings to what the mind wants to cling to, and this seems like an easy enough place to start changing.)

Okay…so what do you want to look like? (Myself, but better.)

What does that mean? (Add vitamin D and a pair of shorts, subtract leggings and snow boots.)

Want to think of a specific outfit you’d wear if you weren’t “losing yourself?” (Yeah. How about a smocked top, maybe an A-line mini skirt — a zebra one!)

Cool. So, what’s getting you out of bed in the morning? (A coffee cocktail of ground beans, cacao and cayenne pepper; don’t ask any more questions about it.)

And are you reading anything interesting right now? (Oh yes, I’m savoring every minute of David Letterman’s interview in New York Magazine.)

If you could be reading it anywhere, where would that be? (Uh, on a beach, you fuckhead.)

What’s the closest thing you’ve got to a beach at this juncture? (The infrared sauna place downstairs.)

Do you know what I’m going to say next? (Yeah.)

How do you feel now? (Better, but still not like my best self.)

So, what are you wearing when you’re your “best self?” (One of those crazy Jacquemus shirtdresses — or a bathing suit! Just a bathing suit, with a button-down shirt over it.)

How are you going to reconcile that for right now? (I don’t know.)

Think about it, please. (I guess..by…taking the morning off, blasting the heat and drinking my coffee while in a bathing suit and button-down shirt?)

Questions to Ask Yourself When You're Getting Dressed But Don't Feel Like You Anymore Man Repeller Feature

How does that feel? (Misplaced, but also like I am severely understood!)

But now you have to go outside. Is there a way to bring the spirit of your best self to your current self? (You’re probably only asking because the answer is yes, right?)

Right. (Well! I could ~accessorize~ with really extravagant headbands and brooches and other stuff, too.)

What’s stopping you?

???

(Nothing, I guess.)