Ode to the Pretty Dress

Sometimes you feel like wearing a pretty dress; sometimes you don't.

Some days I just want to try on one of my dresses, not because I'm going somewhere or because I'm choosing something to wear on a particular day coming up. Just because I feel like seeing it on, feeling it on.

Some days I don't want to wear a dress. Some days everything pretty in my closet feels like I can't touch it, like it no longer has anything to do with me. Like pretty is something I can't understand.

Some days I feel beautiful. Some days I don't. Most days I really don't know or care. Mostly I don't really know what that means or what it should mean or what it does mean in relation to what it should mean. The whole beauty on the inside thing is sometimes even worse than considering beauty as on the outside because sometimes it's easier to change what's on the outside than what's on the inside. Looking inside is difficult, isn't it? We spend our whole lives trying to get comfortable with doing that.

Riding away in a mining cart; Spring 2015

I guess that's what it is with the pretty dress. Some days I'm so focused on my internal thoughts that what I look like is irrelevant. Some days I'm so content in my internal thoughts that the outside feels nice, too, like something I want to adorn with a lace dress. And some days the internal thoughts are struggling enough that they can't quite see why a lace dress would mean anything.

I like lace--but not pink. Well, some pink I can do sometimes. But in general I don't wear pink. I have a particular type of girly style. I wear lace in white and brown and green. Embroidery is great, too. Makeup, yes, but not makeup I spend any amount of time on. Hair? Oh, I have lots of hair--but I let it have its own way, with its own touch of waves. No taming the mane--whatever for?

And so I walk, in my lace dress. Because some days you want to feel pretty and girly and feminine. And some days you don't.