Berrycakeness

Wear your own clothes to work.

Unless you’re stealing clothing from other people, or you primarily buy secondhand. And yes, all clothes you own are technically your own. It’s a turn of phrase I’ve continued through from school into my work life. A reluctance to wear anything smart (uniform) as really, who cares.

According to someone, my reluctance to wear smart clothes (where it is not mandatory) is a sign of immaturity, and when I grow up, I won’t want to wear a hoodie and jeans in the office.

There’s a few issues I have with that statement.

1) Smart clothes. What are they? Should I be wearing a ball gown to the office? Commute in a Fedora?

2)  It is not mandatory. Speaks for itself

3) Sign of immaturity. My preference to wear clothes I could easily sleep in is not a sign of immaturity, but instead a sign of one who enjoys comfort, and a vertical position.

Of course when I visit clients, I wear less casual clothes. I also sweat like a beast and worry that I’m going to rip the oh so thin trousers I am now made to wear, instead of the robust textile strength of denim. Or the nearest derivative to denim, I really don’t think I’ve ever worn real denim.

Then it’s shoes – My dad has always said that people judge you based on your shoes. I don’t think the world should bother to look that low down on me, but if they did when visiting a client they would say, “Oh, she’s wearing boots with no heels. That’s more presentable than what she usually wears on her size 8 slabs of meat”.

I’m 5’11” and I do not need any more height. My calves will never benefit from a heel, they are very toned (fat, but toned) and will not be going anywhere. My arthritis would prefer I wore crocs, but I never listen to what it has to say so fuck you.

Talking arthritis, I’ve not mentioned it too much on this blog. I’m not sure why that is, however the past two weeks have been awful and so here I am. Think pins and needles without the fuzzy feeling, and throw “that feeling you get when you need to click your bones” into the mix. I also seem to lose my ability to regulate my temperature every few minutes – but that’s new to this past few weeks, and it could simply be weather related.

I get on with it mostly, but these past few mornings have been a struggle. The difficulty is that every day actions become harder or simply slower to carry out. For example, brushing ones teeth or hair. Gripping is more painful that you might realise, which means I never grip has hard as I should. Therefore, I become clumsy and drop things all the time. And angling my hands to brush teeth/hair hurts so much. I bought an electric toothbrush which has been fabulous, and hair…well, it’s just messier than usual. I did go through a stage of not brushing it…a good few months. No one noticed.

Then there’s things like dressing myself, for the most part I’m fine but when it comes to zips, shoelaces, buttons…good luck. I can take up to 15 minutes to put on a pair of jeans. I’m not looking for alternative trouserwear, or sympathy. I need a way of knowing that when I wake up tomorrow morning, I’m going to need an extra x amount of time to get ready for work. Because I can’t get up early everyday…

Climbing into the shower, cleaning and drying myself. All takes a ridiculous amount of time. It also hurts a fuck ton. Honestly, there’s not much I can do quickly in the midst of a flare up. It’s depressing. The temptation is to call in sick at work to rest it out all the time. I know however that for the majority of time, I get better after a few hours of movement. Almost half a day passes and I finally feel less pain, and have enough concentration to get shit done.

Fortunately I have these flare up’s less often. Unfortunately they seem to be related to me having too much fun (dancing, exercise, staying out late) or stress (boo). So limiting the fun is shit, and I can’t control the stress.

And so that is why I don’t write about it often.

Xoxo