I am.
I always have been. I love to wear jeans. Tight, loose, dark, light, faded, trouser...doesn't matter. I love jeans.
This is a problem for me, turns out.
Since I am a professional and work in a job that requires professional wear, my jeans wearing is limited compared to what it once was. I lived my whole life in jeans when I was in college, and when it came to finding some non-jean pants, I was like, "what?"
But then I became a teacher, and cute outfits like this became my life:
I do love wearing things like this, I do. But there are some days when I just really, really, really, really want to pull on my favorite jeans and go to work in comfort. You see, pants are the bane of my existence. Finding a pair of pants that fits and wears comfortably is like finding dirt in a snow storm. I hate it!! But jeans I can handle. Sometimes, I just want to slip into something like this:
Would it really be that big of a deal if I wore jeans to work? After all, I have plenty of colleagues that disregard the no jeans rule on a regular basis, and they don't seem to be suffering any ill-consequences from it. Yet I can't bring myself to do it. I want to so bad that my teeth hurt some days, but I just can't do it.
Why?
Part of it might have to do with my inherent personality. I am a rule-follower. I always have been. The rule is that we don't wear jeans except on Fridays with school spirit attire. So I follow the rule. Even when I see others that don't and I could probably get away with it.
But when I complain about this to Hubster, he always says the same thing: "Do you really want to be like everyone else? You are a professional, and that sets you apart."
He's right, even though some days I want to do away with "setting myself apart."
Then...
I was at the doctor's office today, and I picked up a magazine to thumb through while I waited. The mag was an old copy of Ladies' Home Journal, and there was the most fascinating article in it, entitled I Broke Up With My Yoga Pants by Sarah Hepola.
The article was written by a young woman who realized one day that her steady fashion diet of yoga pants and hoodies was not the kind of fashion life she wanted to be living. While she told herself that it didn't matter what she wore because she was focused on her career, her writing, or school, eventually she realized that what she put on her back is important. And some of her words are rather poignant, making this observation about our outsides reflecting our insides:
"I was too much in my head in those days, slaving at a challenging job; my clothes weren't important. Somehow, it took me until last winter to start to questioning that attitude. I realized it didn't make sense. After all, I have never been a careless person. I pay attention to what I say, how I speak and how my actions and words will affect other people. So why did I think that how I looked didn't matter? In our casual, Pajama-jean wearing culture, it's easy to forget that."
WOW!!!
Talk about hitting the nail on the head.
What Hepola said pretty much sums up why it's really important that I keep following my no-jeans rule at work. Because I am not a rebellious or careless person, so why would I wear something that says otherwise? Much like I would never wear a t-shirt with a dumb slogan on, I care about what I put on because I care about what my appearance says to the world. I take my job teaching children seriously, and so I need to communicate that with the world.
And though I am a jeans woman, through-and-through, I want people to see the things I hold dear on the inside, reflected on the outside.
So, no jeans for me during the week. But that's okay.
I Broke Up With My Yoga Pants gave me a little new perspective on my fashion sense.
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