Reinventing Jane

We all know somewhere somehow, after becoming a mom you lose something. Parts of the "old" you become increasingly less visible. Till one day your standing in a store or in your own closet wondering how the hell you got here in the first place. You're not just a mom, a headless entity that does things, finds things, cooks, and cleans for other people (although it feels like it some days), you're still there. Deep down, in the dark recesses you are still the same girl you once were. Maybe not with the same body, hair, skin and all that crap, but you know who you were.

You're still you, but it is like someone took you apart, put the pieces of you into a jar, shook it up, dumped it all back out, reassembled the pieces, but somehow didn't quite manage to get it right. Kind of like the image of Humpty Dumpty being put back together by soldiers and horses, not pretty. And it certainly not like the adage, "it's you, only better".

Today this hit me....hard. I stopped at the mall to see if I could find something, anything to put on my not so perfect body. Something that would put that little spring back into my step, yeah whatever. I recently heard a talk about how women tend not to know their style "age" especially after having children.

It starts out with you in your twenties. You still aren't sure how to make the transition from a teen dresser to a young woman...well sadly that confusion, sticks like cellulite for many of us. Next you find yourself struggling to create some kind of image that fits who you thought you were, but now that you've kind of figured it out, you've aged ten years and you are on the fashion/identity hamster wheel from hell!! Fuck!!

Now I walk into stores with young, and I mean young girls giving you advice, or just trying to humour so you get the hell out of their hair, and stop shopping in their stores. Help I am stuck! Either I go straight for granny-ville, or back to my twenties, which just isn't cool. I don't know how to picture myself looking stylish and hip without looking like a cougar on the hunt. More often than not I end up leaning towards comfortable clothing that is more like lounge wear. I want to look hip, sophisticated, but lack the know how and frankly the confidence much of the time.

Ah, the joys of growing up and older, becoming a mom, and losing yourself. Why doesn't this transition come with some kind of hand book. There are "how to's" on everything from sex, to computers, to raising children. Why hasn't anyone told us how to tuck little bits of ourselves away so we can take them out later to find that they had aged beautifully like fine wine?

Remember stumbling through the awkwardness of our teens, wishing we could just grow up and become confident women? Oh ,how time plays us for fools. Here we are back at the starting block once again, only we have wrinkles, stretch marks, grey hair, saggy boobs and bums to go with it. Shopping used to be a joy now it's a chore, for the most part. Looking endlessly at racks of jeans and accessories makes my head spin, when it used to make me dizzy with excitement.

Well, I can't very well walk around naked, without putting everyone into therapy. Instead I have to put on my sweetest smile, drag my lumpy bum to the store, to put up with the sympathetic, cynical looks I get from the sales girls and reinvent myself yet again.