Fall fashion used to be my favorite thing in the world. I could easily go without buying a single spring or summer item if it meant I completely indulge when the cozy sweaters, bright tights, and boots hit the stores. Dresses, tights, and boots have long been my favorite outfit in the world to wear. With a Dooney tossed over my forearm to balance myself while walking in those heels, I was a force to be reckoned with from late August till the snow flew. Man, those were the days.
After Cory died, I spent about a year keeping up the facade. Once I returned to work, I returned to fashion as a distraction. Maybe I thought if I continued to look put together, I would act put together...kinda the way Cory used to hold herself so tightly together until she was home in her safest place. Or maybe I thought if I preserved the way I presented myself to others, nothing would change. Preserving things is the most important task when your child dies.
I also shopped with wild abandon. The first foray to a store after she was buried was with my oldest and dearest friend, Nicole, who took me to Kohl's. I remember walking around in a daze, touching things Cory would like and feeling my chest cave in. I did not like being there in a place we'd been so many times without her, and yet I couldn't leave. So instead, I just piled everything I thought she might like into one of their little black carts and hauled all that shit up to the register. Swipe.
Since going out places was so difficult, I started shopping online instead. Within months, I had so many clothes, I was running out of room to store them. But it kept me busy. If there's one thing I can do, it's build an outfit.
All that fell flat eventually. No matter how cute of an outfit I managed to come up with, I couldn't show it to Cory and I couldn't let her borrow it. In the end, the clothes stayed in my drawers, and I started to show up to work mismatched, wrinkled, and frankly, a little smelly. I stopped wearing makeup and the only thing I did to my hair most of the time was stuff a hat over it.
Since Cory died, I've gotten my hair cut just often enough to avoid being called out on it at work, but nothing special. No highlights. No lowlights. No faceframing layers. My hair couldn't even remember its last acquaintance with deep conditioner.
So, I got my hair done a couple of days ago. I've decided when I get Jake's school clothes, I'll get a couple things for my work wardrobe, too. I've put myself on a strict behavior plan to wear heels to work at least twice a week. We'll see how this goes.
The last time I was at Macy's, I wandered through the handbags out of sheer habit, and after I'd fondled a few, I saw one Cory would've went bananas over. It was leather, caramel colored, and sort of a slouchy bohemian saddlebag kinda thing but with some hardware and studs to glam it up. I opened it up and looked inside, imagining all her things resting inside and being carried around by a beautiful, funny, silly young woman who could walk and talk, laugh and cry because she was alive and existed in the same world as me, above ground. I desperately wanted to take it home with me, but I reluctantly set it back on the shelf, ever so gently, not only because it cost two hundred dollars, but because the one thing I learned with all that shopping is that buying things only made me feel better for moments at a time, and no object, no matter how desirable, could fill the gaping hole in my heart. She is not coming back and I've had to learn how to cope with that in a way that doesn't keep me in debt up to my eyeballs.
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