On Stripping (Away) & Gray T-Shirts
For me, this past year has been a year of less.
As I sat down to write this post, I first began with, "This year has been one of significant growth." The problem is that that feels pretentious. And dangerous. Don't we find ourselves continuously having to learn the same lessons over and over again to varying degrees throughout our lives? I could fall flat on my face in professional, personal, and even moral failure today, tonight, tomorrow.
The second problem with defining this past year as one of growth is that growth connotes an addition, an increase of some kind. Instead, this year has been one of stripping away, of minimizing, of less.
Yes, I have learned a lot. About myself and especially what I want in life. But it turns out that what I want--what I really want--is pretty limited. I want to find the liminal spaces, to listen to the base notes, to rest in the Deep. I want close relationships with people who build me up and remind me of who I am. I want dogs and more days spent outside. I want to walk barefoot more often and I want to make art every day.
It turns out that when it comes to what I want, the people and the places are more important than the things. And yet, up until very recently that was not at all the way I lived. Things trumped the people and the places. I lived from one shopping high to the next, scrambling to figure out which credit card had just enough left on it to purchase the next thing.
But in this past year, that has stopped. For the most part. In fact, I can count the pieces of clothing I have purchased on my hands (and maybe a foot). For me, that's a big deal. And it turns out that as a result of spending less (and getting rid of a lot, too) I've learned much more about the way I actually want to dress, what works in my closet and what doesn't.
Which were the pieces I did not give away and wore all the time? (1) The pieces that had a story or meaning, (2) the pieces I had designed for Threads, and (3) my gray t-shirts.
Whether I wore them with distressed jeans, tucked into a skirt, or tied over a jumpsuit, I found myself pulling my gray t-shirts off the rack multiple times each week and never tiring of them. Admittedly, I have a pretty solid selection of gray tees at this point, but their versatility and functionality made everything else in my closet more versatile and functional, too! It turns out that in the process of minimizing, I found just a few areas in my life that could use a little maximizing! So, while I am hesitant to say that I have grown in this past year, my gray t-shirt collection absolutely has!
For this reason--to share the gray t-shirt love and to hopefully make your wardrobe more functional too, we have launched a mini-collection of gray t-shirts. Five styles, four gray fabrics, and endless possibilities. For those of you living in Houston and Alexandria, we will have them at this weekend's events. Check out our Facebook page for those details. If you're not local to where we live, we'll be getting them up on our website within a week or so. We'll be sure to send out an email when that happens.
And now that this blog post has unexpectedly become a short story, I will sign off. Love to you all.
xoxo
Christen
