Colour Me Pretty

Most of my life has been spent in clothes that are either black or brown. The occasional summer top may have had colour, but in the main I have chosen to wear colours I can hide in rather than stand out in.

I wonder if I have always been this way?

Certainly I have for the majority of my adult life, although Gary’s first sight of me was doing an assault course through a forest in New York State in a bright orange dress at the age of 20! So maybe not all of my adult life 😉

I get teased mercilessly for it by my children. I only have to comment that I’ve bought a new top and the comments about it being brown start!

Over the past twenty-five years of being married, I have avoided buying clothes, finding the whole experience quite traumatic! But hurtling towards fifty, I find myself re-evaluating everything, especially my rather negative attitude towards myself.

I can honestly say that I’ve probably bought more clothes for myself in the last year than I have in the past twenty years. To be fair, most of the items thus far have been sports wear that I can wear for my walks, during the day and to the gym.

This week, though, we are attending a wedding of one of my precious ‘adopted’ children.

We have an open house policy here, which means that whenever anyone needs a bed for the night, they have one. Sometimes we have had so many people staying that one young man had to sleep on a fold down bed in our hallway!

The bride in question has spent many nights in our home over her teen years, and practically lived with us over one three-month-long summer. I couldn’t be more happy for her to have found her happily ever after ❤️

Anyway, I digress, the wedding. I had planned to wear a pale green top and white leggings but England is going through a mini heat wave at the moment (or at least it is where we live – a friend further up north just posted a photo of the snow fall she had!). The green top is too warm to wear in heat as it is not made of a natural material.

So I started looking for something else, not owning anything smart enough for a wedding.

I found a bright pink and orange dress. It is gorgeous, if a bit colourful.

It came in the post and was met by the obligatory ‘brown’ comments and then with much excitement when the children adults in question found out it was pink and orange!

I tried it on and was surprised by how lovely it looked, and how lovely I looked in it. Somehow the colour brightened my skin tone and it made me feel so summery. It’s a keeper, although I think I maybe could have gone down a size as it’s a bit loose.

Yesterday, we all went into the local town to buy some football gear for Becca, who is joining a girls’ football club in August. At the same time, we were picking up some undies for the rest of the girls to wear with their dresses for the wedding – white never stays white in our house and white was needed.

I saw some undies (apologies for the TMI but this is important!) which were bright pink…and I bought them…for me!!

I have never, ever, ever owned undies that weren’t black or white and made of cotton. This was so far removed from normal Claire. Gary almost fell over, and would have, I am sure, had he not been sitting at the time 🤣

So, on Saturday, I shall be wearing a bright pink and orange dress with some bright pink and orange, matching, underwear. Literally it matches my dress almost exactly!

It’s taken me almost fifty years to become comfortable in this body of mine. Fifty years. It’s a long time in coming, but my goodness, I am going down with a (very pink) bang!