Consignment

I took my daughter to our favorite consignment shop. It has been under this particular ownership for three years now, and the selection never disappoints. We enjoy the convenience and share a love for other people’s castoffs. We wander the aisles, pawing through the racks for hidden gems. Boutiques like this dry-clean their goods, so we leave with our hands free of mysterious film. Last night, as we stepped through the door, we were hit with a beam of light—a ring light the size of a hula-hoop illuminated the counter. The Gen Z store clerk’s face glowed beneath it, filtered and projected onto a phone screen as she narrated a “Live” auction on social media to a virtual audience. A Bluetooth speaker perched on the glass counter blared pop hits I couldn’t name, but my daughter recognized from her roller-skating unit in gym class.

My daughter immediately got to work, charming the daylights out of the staff while bowling balls thunder through the building. Someone in the alley next door landed a strike. Every few seconds another ball crashed down the lane, rattling the floorboards just enough that you could feel it in your feet as you slide hangers of clothing back and forth.

I was on a mission. I’d be needing to pack something white for one of the upcoming weekend’s themed dinners.

Is it a surprise I don’t own a white dress? It just hasn't been a color I've historically felt was mine to wear. White seemed to belong to another category of women entirely. A garment as numinous as a sacrament. The sort of thing I imagined one somehow earned, though I never could.

Well. There it was. One white dress in a sea of black, consigned for a woman exactly my size. I held it up to the light to inspect for any marks. My daughter said, “You have to try it on,“ and so I did. She zipped me in and made a ceremony of the reveal with the staff. Perfect fit.

I'm not entirely sure what's happening with my wardrobe these days.

One thing I have decided is to simplify my workout clothes. Black. White. Interchangeable. The fewer decisions my closet asks me to make in that department, the more room there is for the new habits I'm going to build. I figure this is as good a time as any to build a few healthier habits—write more, move my body more, maybe even increase my vertical enough to keep up with my betters in various activities.

I don't relish the pressure of assembling a cute gym outfit every time I take a class. However, I also want to make sure I don't accidentally wander into lesbian prison guard territory.

If I'm going to start some sort of routine that attempts lifting weights and eating clean, I'm going to rely on those closest to me to keep an eye on things. Should I begin fading into one of those pale, protein-powered wellness apparitions, I'd appreciate an early warning, somewhere between keto glow and keto ghost.

Anyway, I did buy the white dress. Technically it's denim, so I'm not entirely sure it qualifies. But it does land a few inches above the knee, which feels like it ought to satisfy at least one of the unwritten guidelines. 

Maybe after a few weeks of squats and walking lunges I'll have thighs worthy of the hemline.