I have no idea. I really don’t. I don’t know what type of clothes to wear on my body. I mean, I know the basic rules of clothes on a body:
1. They should be weather appropriate.
2. They should not smell bad.
3. They should probably not be see-through.
4. They should not be so tight that they cut off circulation nor so loose that they fall off.

That’s it. That’s really all I know about dressing myself in this post-COVID world. I don’t know. I mean, since COVID hit, my clothing purchases have been all over the map. I’ve purchased giant, fuzzy pink sweaters, pre-holed mom jeans, a hippie dress two sizes too large and an epic high-collared black dress that I love wearing at home but won’t wear outside, lest folks think I’m a spectre.

I don’t know. As I type this, I am wearing a fabulous mixed pattern dress from Target that squishes my boobs and makes me look vaguely like a living circus tent that’s been patched from clown costumes and train curtains. I’m here for it. Side note- I look like a total dork in shorts. I just can’t. I can’t with the shorts. And I wear them when we hike, but man, I look like a complete doofus when I wear them.

As I transition back into a world where people need to look “professional,” I find myself completely lost. Not only do I have to contend with being a size larger than I was pre-COVID, but I also have to negotiate the societal bullspit of “dressing for my age.” I don’t know what that means. I’m over forty. Does that mean I should dress like this?

God knows you don’t want to come across as “Mutton Dressed Up As Lamb,” a phrase I was recently introduced to, which I find horrifically misogynistic. I’ve looked at those online fashion listicles, like “You CAN Look Good After 40!” and “13 Ways to Dress When You’re a Hag.” It’s not super helpful. Many of them are just a list of “no’s.” The gist of these articles is don’t dress like Macho Man Randy Savage (no spandex, ripped clothing or crazy accessories) and you’ll be fine, brother.

But what to wear? Can I wear my dress that makes me look like Nicole Kidman on her way to a tea party after she escapes a cult? Is that okay? Because I love that outfit. I know there are so-called staples that all women need in their wardrobe: a blazer (for when you’re doing a business), a little black dress (for funerals?), a pair of jeans to wear at the grocery store, a crisp, white button-down shirt (for spilling food upon) and a pencil skirt (for when you’d like to pretend to be a pencil). Maybe a pillbox hat if you’re feeling jaunty. Did I get those right?

Living in Vermont doesn’t help, as most folks round here are super-casual. If you bought it at REI or your grandma’s lover knitted it from alpaca hair (the alpaca she raised herself, btw), you’re considered in style. If I showed up at a Vermont meeting in a blazer and pencil skirt, someone would probably ask me if I was going to court that day. Or they’d ask me why I’m pretending to be a pencil.

I think the real problem is that fashion has collided with time, rendering all things possible at any moment. So if I get the urge to wear a marabou stole with a sequined tube top, tulle skirt, rainbow knee socks and a pirate hat, I technically can. Anything’s on the table, thus I am overloaded with options. Bu just because you can, should you? I dunno. I have a crow’s sense of fashion. Is it shiny? Does it glitter? Does it have a big pattern? Is it impractical and under $40? Give it me. I often see kids’ shoes and think “I wish those came in adult sizes.” I mean, how cool would it be to wear light-up shoes that look like a dragon?

Juxtaposed with all these fashion options are a set of unwritten (and sometimes explicitly written) rules for what middle-aged women should and should not wear. But, in the words of Boychild, “Why?” Why can’t a woman over 40 wear a mini-skirt? Will the weight of her prodigious knee-wrinkles pose a tripping hazard for those in her orbit? Thankfully, some of those “rules” for what women shouldn’t wear after 40 are softening.

There’s no real way to end this post other than to say to my fellow Xinnials (The cuspers of late Gen X, early Millenials) that if you feel adrift on a sea of possibility and unwritten rules about dressing for your age, you are not alone. I think it’s a part of a larger plan to make everyone think they’re dressing wrong so they’ll buy more stuff. This is the essence of fashion, yes? To get folks to buy stuff they don’t need in order to prevent being shamed? “That outfit is too young for you.” “That skirt makes you look fat.” “You look like a muppet.” No one wants to be shamed for what they wear. And yet. Maybe the real work is not in my closet. Maybe the real work is in chipping away my self-consciousness and muting that voice in my head that’s telling me to dress like some anonymous age-appropriate person who is not me . . . and lean into dressing like a muppet.