Nothing to Wear, Nowhere to Go.
As I look into my closet I tell myself, “I have nothing to wear”. Staring back at me are the racks filled with nothing but clothes, but “I wonder,” is this really about clothes?
A common misconception is that you should have everything figured out by the time you graduate high school. Go to a good university, graduate, get a job, settle down, then start a family, that's the outline. That all sounds great, but what if that isn't what I want? If getting dressed is about knowing who you are, what happens when you're not sure who you're becoming?
I was recently talking to a friend about what to do post-graduation. Throughout my whole life I didn’t run my schedule by the calendar year, I ran it off of the school year. At the end of the year, I got a job, worked over the summer, and saved up money. When college came around the summer jobs turned into summer internships, but what happens when the post-grad summer comes around? When there isn’t a summer internship waiting for you? The goal is to have a job lined up for you right after you graduate, but around 58% of college graduates are jobless post-grad. This statistic has made me lost, confused, and overwhelmed. Not sure of where I want to go, who I want to be, or what I want to wear. While talking about this topic on the phone with my friend, we talked about how everyone is on a different path. There are so many different options out there to choose. My path vs. my friend’s can differ entirely. That's the beauty of it, but it got me thinking, is it so scary to move on to the next chapter because everyone is on a different page?
I’ll be honest these past few months I have been stuck in a rut. I got back from traveling the world, seeing so many beautiful places, experiencing different cultures, then went straight into working my summer internship. I graduate this upcoming spring not sure what I want to do. What I do know is that I plan to stay in school for two more years to further my fashion education. I thought the two extra years of school would put all of this confusion on pause and delay the big girl job hunting but it didn’t. I was still stuck with the question, "What's the plan after graduation”? “Where are you going to work?” “What do you want to do with your life?”
I literally don’t know what I'm doing tomorrow, let alone what I'm doing in ten years…I usually just answer those questions with a few-word responses, not putting much thought into it. It didn't hit me till the question came from my mom. We were on our morning walk and she just asked me, “What is your plan for next summer?” I almost responded with my go-to response, “eh I don’t know I'll figure it out,” until I started actually naming off the goals I want to achieve in my life. I told her my dreams of owning my own brand, becoming a fashion designer, seeing the rainbow mountains in Peru, hiking Acatenago in Guatemala, starting a non-profit, and the list goes on. It wasn't till I said all of those things out loud that it really hit me. Okay, I want to achieve all of this, now where do I start? A familiar feeling that comes from the question, “What am I going to wear?” Dreams and goals are easy to say out loud but when you actually put pen to paper it can become extremely difficult. I have all these goals I want to accomplish in my lifetime and the conversation I had with my mom is replaying in my head while driving back to my summer internship. Then, all of a sudden on the Pennsylvania turnpike ChosenbyClare was born. I had a conversation with my cousin a few weeks prior. We talked about the mission work she does in Honduras and it really made me motivated to give back to the community. So I said to myself “How do I make this happen?” Something that stayed constant in my life was thrifting; it was my personal therapy. So what better than to start a business and merge the two things that bring me the most fulfillment: thrifting and giving-back. My best ideas come in the shower and the car, and so it's not surprising that as I sat behind the wheel driving, the idea hit me, a resale vintage business that gives back 10% to rotating charities. It felt unachievable when I first thought of it. I've had so many business ventures in my head but none really stuck. But following one discussion with my dad, I was filling out permits the next day. Alright, this is really happening. Graduating and moving onto the next chapter can be terrifying, but we don't need to do it alone. It is the people in your corner that make each day a little easier. As the great Carrie Bradshaw once said:
“The most important thing in life is your family. There are days you love them, and others you don't. But, in the end, they're the people you always come home to. Sometimes it's the family you're born into and sometimes it's the one you make for yourself.”
Maybe starting over is a lot like standing in front of a closet full of clothes and feeling like none of them fit anymore. Not because they've changed, but because you have.
-Clare Andrykovitch