PROJECT FROCK — 100 Days & Counting — Chapter 3
The period since my last entry for Project Frock (that was Chapter 2) has been a tale of two halves. Two very starkly contrasted halves, I should say.
As is so often the way, things started seemingly rather well and then suddenly life, comprehensively, blew up. Not total destruction (she says, hopefully) but right now it does feel like that.
Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself.
So, The Frock.
Well, we were getting on rather well actually, at the start of this last period.
I began to think of The Frock and I being in an arranged marriage. All the outward signs suggested we ought to be able to make a go of it, with a little bit of give and take (like me wearing it over my blue jeans) on both sides. We could even become genuinely fond of each other given time, I thought. I was especially looking forward to learning more fresh perspectives from my little piece of blue Merino wool.
So, I was wafting around feeling soft and swishy, relaxed even, and the clothing/attire questions in my life had drifted comfortably into the background. It was good because I really did get on more with ‘other things’ and felt somehow cleaner, sharper and more focused. Definitely freer and more creative. One Frock equals One Centred Woman.
I’ve been doing a lot more experimental art work and been really happy with it. Missing the family terribly, but yeah, overall pretty positive. The weather has been fabulous. My long walks with the hound in the countryside around our hamlet is like mainlining joy and beauty direct to my brain’s frontal cortex (or is it the amygdala?).
Anyway, the vote in the psychological debate about whether I was more exposed, more naked in The Frock (dresses just ‘aren’t me’) or had I found a comfortable new ‘skin’ that liberated me, fell resoundingly in favour of the latter.
The practical aspects of this dress uniform remained positive too. Volumes of laundry continue to drop, so I felt righteous there, you know, using less power and chemicals, and never being one for much ironing, I was thrilled to discover that this domestic chore no longer even figures in my life.
I have even stopped moaning about any unwanted spillages (cat food tins exploding down my front, bits of straw or hay getting stuck on me, coffee slurps when Steve makes me laugh and splutter …) largely because the old, long cardigans hide most of it. And I have got a lot better (frequent, might be a better word) at telling myself and Steve that he loves me for my marvelous inner magic and not my outer shell. So far so good.
Then things started moving rapidly south and some unpleasant truths started squatting in my newly constructed House of Virtue.
Two things have happened in our lives that are having a huge impact, but as this is a blog about me and The Frock, and not an alternative to a session with a shrink, I shall abbreviate the situation.
One, I am currently being stalked on-line by someone who is clearly dangerous and I feel threatened. I am in touch with the Met Police as the man lives in London and have even made a formal statement (he’s already been in prison twice) so that’s all yet to be resolved.
Two, we’ve been presented with a horrific series of back-taxes and eye-watering fines here in Italy, that make Chile’s National Debt look less problematic than my credit card bill. God alone knows how it will all play out but this is real ‘keeping me awake at night’ stuff.
Suddenly, my relationship with The Frock began to flounder.
I clearly hadn’t got my Arranged Marriage with it into full swing and I began to feel more like a hostage to it than a co-founder of a new and positive project.
I even have to get Steve to take a picture of me in it every day, to prove to the Challenge People that I am doing what I promised. For me, the pictures are starting to smack a little of ‘Proof of Life’ pictures in a kidnapping.
So, this has led me to performing Petty Acts of Rebellion.
I wear it over jeans far more than I feel I should (because that makes it a tunic, right, and not a real dress?) and on one day I got into a total fuming strop and wore it as a turban.
Steve kept saying, “This isn’t going to cut it with the guys at Wool&, Tam, and you’ll have failed to see this through — you’ll feel really shitty if you blow this now.” I can’t print my response but this picture tells you I refused to take the dress off my head. Like who wears dresses on their head? All day long.
It did make me feel disappointed in myself though … all that, ‘Oh but I was doing SO well’ crap, but also I was angry that I had somehow reverted to type: why could I only get emotional comfort from my old clothes and friendly sweaters? No answers as yet.
I’ve being getting tired too (happens when you lie awake all night!) and that’s led to a loss of enthusiasm — I don’t any longer know who is the cart and who is the horse — which is The Frock and which is me?
I was looking at how The Frock is actually made the other day — very well indeed is the answer — and in my current depressed and anxious mood it got me thinking.
Is this what we’ve all done, you know, have we safely stitched ourselves very carefully and very tightly into our little worlds?
That might be OK, but what happens when a thread comes loose and we start to worry at it, to pull at it? Do we become totally unraveled and unrecognisable or can we make a new thing out of what’s left? A better thing? With my life at the moment, I have to say the jury is still out on that one.
Well, a brief and not terribly jolly or positive third installment of Project Frock. But, hey, gotta tell it like it is, right?!
See you guys soon and take care.
