Today, I'm wearing the same dress I wore for my college graduation. Yes, that means it is 11 years old. Thankfully, it doesn't look it. It most likely does not look it because I thought it was too tight and a little racy back in the day. This cracks me up now. It's basically a black lycra jersey t-shirt dress. You can dress it up or down, but I would never venture to call it "racy" by any stretch of the imagination. However, back in 2000 I was still in the newly post-grunge world of jeans and t-shirts everyday at a Christian liberal arts school, which is much different from the ultra-glam-sorority-girl-cocktail-dresses-at-church-SEC-football world I live in today. And, thanks to Weight Watchers and a hernia, the dress is not as tight as it was then. Still, I thought it was "too tight and racy" to wear for several years, which I'm sure has added to it lasting so long. In retrospect, I wish I had bought 10 of them.
I've thought about this theme a lot lately. I look at all of the beautiful college-aged women that I get to go to church with and even mentor on occasion, and they are always in great outfits. I did not do this in college. Sadly, dressing up for me sometimes included carpenter jeans, skorts, or sweater vests. Oh, or maybe some khakis. Even if we went dancing. I wasn't trying to dress like a man, it was just the late 90s. Some girls wore outfits and pretty dresses - but only the ones that were commercial music majors and pursuing a record deal. You know, the same girls that went to a stylist at Trim (which started at $40!) instead of Headstart. (At least I fancied it up by going to a Headstart in Green Hills).
Girls grow up so fast now. Back then, we didn't have a clue that we were "women". We didn't know that the pretty dresses and accessories and looking diva every day was for us. We thought it was something we would grow to. Or, at least I did. Granted, I also didn't think I was worthy of such things back then.
I admit I put a lot of effort into how I look these days. Sometimes it makes me feel materialistic, or makes me afraid that others will perceive me as superficial, but really I mean it as a celebration of life and of the fact God created me as a woman. I do it more because I get to and it can be fun and because I wore plaid flannel much longer than I should have. I look at these younger women and wonder if they merely understand this waaay earlier than I did or if they dress like this because culture dictates it and they truthfully have a long way to grow internally. I dress up now out of security in who I am, not out of the insecurity of a young woman. I assume that it is often the reverse for these girls. (Although there are totally days where I dress up to give myself more courage). Still, I look at them and wonder if I missed out on something, or if I'd be married now if I had dressed like them between the ages of 18 and 25.
I don't have the answer to that question, but I know God is good and sovreign so I shouldn't spend time worrying about it. And, I'm thankful that he is showing me how to be a grown woman in my early 30's, because that's for sure something that doesn't come naturally!
*This blog post is not meant to be a commentary on the social control placed on women by using the term "girl" or the issue of whether or not modern Christianity supresses women by having them claim the word "girl" for themselves. Yes, this is where my professor hat and my girly-girly hat meet :).
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