random ootd photo & new hair!

It's summer time and the living is easy.  Let's have a random style related outfit of the day post, shall we?

The big news is (drum roll please):

I got my first hair cut in 4 years!

Yup, that's right, four years ago I got my last cut before chemo. After treatment my hair grew back very slowly, and very differently from how it was.  First it came in tight little curls, then course, wirey waves.  It didn't grow evenly either.  So I simply trimmed my bangs and kept cutting off strange wayward waves until something akin to my previous hair emerged.  It was finally time to get a real grown up hairstyle again.  The result is this simple layered bob.  I like it...though it is a wee bit shorter than anticipated. 

Anyway, I wore this outfit last week when the weather took a cooler turn.  We've been calling this old zebra striped blouse from Kohls my magic top...it seems to go with everything...paired with any color cardigan it works.  It has also fit me at several different weights -- yeah, it really is magic.

The new lightweight cropped cardi is from Target and I'm in love with the orange color.

My dark jeans are Sante Fe bootcut from the Avenue.  The bone colored Dansko Sissy sandals are thrifted and I live in them for the summer...truly the most comfy pair of shoes I own.  I often find them for sale new on eBay and have them in other colors. 

So, there you go, an ootd.  Hope everyone enjoys these early days of summer!

in the eyes of the beholder

Beauty is by nature objective.  And like the old 1970's song says, everyone is beautiful in their own way.  Yet rarely do I ever appreciate my own beauty in the present tense.  Instead I tend to see it most in images from the past.  Whenever I see photos of myself  I think wow, I didn’t realize how nice I looked then.  The mirror of today often tells me a much different story than the lens of yesterday. 

When I created this blog and began posting outfit pix here it was an attempt at self-acceptance.  I was trying to appreciate my inherent beauty...a beauty I believe everyone possesses.  While society often has unrealistic ideals for what is considered attractive, I’m not interested in that.  As a nearly 50 year old woman those impossible standards left me in the dust years ago.  I’m talking about the kind of beauty that is personal.  The kind where you are pleased with the image in the mirror because you look your best and it represents who you are as a whole, real person -- not some narrowed view based on arbitrarily defined criteria meant for a ridiculously select few. 

But lately beautiful is a bit far from how I feel.  When I look in the mirror today I see a woman radically altered.  From a 40+ pound weight gain due to ongoing cancer meds, to a head of hair grown back after chemo that doesn’t feel like my own, not to mention the accelerated progression of aging as a result of treatment -- all have left me feeling a little less than pretty at the moment.  I confess, I’ve been avoiding the mirror, let alone the lens. 

 

I remember feeling this way before.  Sandwiched between my late twenties and thirties I began a weight gain spiral that eventually resulted in "significant obesity."  I disliked my reflection in the mirror then, too.  I don’t even have any pictures of myself from that period, but other people have one or two.  I saw them not long ago and you know what?  Once again, in the rearview mirror of history I could see myself as attractive...I could find plenty to recognize as beautiful.  What a shame I didn’t see it back then.  I would have gained so much from even a little bit more self-esteem. 

Maybe part of how we judge our own appearance should also be relative to our experience, to what is going on in our lives.  For me that means focusing on how I feel, on making  positive strides every day to regain my health.  I want to reclaim wellness post-cancer.  Meanwhile I will try harder to embrace the body I am in right now because it sure has been through a lot and served me pretty well in the process, all things considered. 

So I took these pictures. I posed on my back deck for the first time in years.  I may not immediately love what I see.  It may be obvious how cancer has changed me, and unwanted change is never easy.  But now I will always have these images to look at and remember I was beautiful...I was beautiful today.