What Are You Wearing?!

I have a confident friend with perceptive eyes and a welcoming smile. A woman who is lovely in both heart and flesh. She dresses in exotic fabrics perfumed with romantic scents that smell so delicious they may have been imported from heaven. Her movements are naturally rhythmic like window sheers dancing on a summer’s breeze. Whimsical, she loves wearing tinkling bangles, and luminous moonstone, always adding enchantment to the ordinary. She is a palpable palate of color captivating eyes long bored with beige skirts and sensible shoes. Her artful ways inspire creativity…and jealousy.

This unique friend works in a respectable office with a group of careful women; women with tight lips, and cutting eyes, whose ambiguous smiles express cryptic thoughts. My friend thought that she could win this group over by being herself…sharing her mirthful ways with them. In chilled silence they resisted her offerings, lending my friend warmth only when she conformed to their sterile traditions. Little by little my friend abandoned herself; shedding her bangles, bunning her long hair, and dressing in itchy, wrinkle resistant polyesters, while her friendly silks hung forgotten in the darkness of her closet.

One day, as my friend was getting ready to leave for work, her husband gently questioned her. “Honey,” he said, in a hesitant voice, “what are you wearing?” You see her husband loved her whimsical ways and missed the charm of her expressiveness and the seductive poise which carried her, like a magic carpet, throughout her day. She looked down at her drab wardrobe, as if seeing it for the very first time, and simply answered, “I don’t know.”


I am happy to report that my friend has resumed her relationship with herself and is still working at the same office. She has made some friends…the right ones, and learned a very valuable lesson from her experience.

We were created to be different. The only true gift that we have to offer the world is our authentic selves. Once compromised, we become impotent clones numbered among the lost, living a life without purpose, and dying alone with our regrets. Being yourself often requires great bravery, but it is better to be alone, and content with yourself, than to be in a crowded room where nobody recognizes you…including yourself.