I often get nostalgic for our time in Champaign, IL in the 1990s. Usually I say it’s where the boys were born. Where we bought and renovated our first home together. Where we went back to church and recommitted to faith. Where I had my last full-time job in teaching English as a Second Language. Or it might be the purple skirt.
Waiting for a video to encode yesterday, I flipped through our 1993 album and found a photo of me from an Intensive English Institute event. I’m wearing a vivid purple skirt with an equally vivid floral shirt. Granted I was much younger then, but until this year it had been a long time since I bought anything so clearly impractical.
I had many reasons for that. Guilt about not having a real (paying) job. Not going many places I needed to look nice when I stayed home full-time. Money being tight. Two boys constantly wearing out or growing out of clothes. Being a good steward. Moving often enough to see the craziness of hauling around too much stuff.
My closet gradually filled with black and white clothes. My white sofa wore a slipcover—practical for teenaged boys lounging on it. My walls, painted neutral tan and cream in every house because they matched the furniture we had. Part-time jobs that practically fit around the kids’ and Jeff’s schedules. Nothing wrong with any of those things—and no huge regrets about them either. But…
I know I am not the same woman who wore the purple skirt—and yet she is still a part of me, a part I'm gradually rediscovering. I see her in the furniture I bought last fall just because I liked the style. The lime-green rug in my office. The red shirt with flowers. The highlights in my hair for the first time ever. None of them are practical—and none were easy decisions!
In fact, this week I kept the shoes I bought—the fun shoes—the shoes I worried might be a little too young for me—in the box, pretty sure I’d return them. They just aren’t practical. After I saw the photo of the purple skirt, I threw the box away and put on the shoes.
My focus for 2019 is to help revitalize the church Jeff is serving. However, I also plan to be more intentional about revitalizing myself.
Waiting for a video to encode yesterday, I flipped through our 1993 album and found a photo of me from an Intensive English Institute event. I’m wearing a vivid purple skirt with an equally vivid floral shirt. Granted I was much younger then, but until this year it had been a long time since I bought anything so clearly impractical.
I had many reasons for that. Guilt about not having a real (paying) job. Not going many places I needed to look nice when I stayed home full-time. Money being tight. Two boys constantly wearing out or growing out of clothes. Being a good steward. Moving often enough to see the craziness of hauling around too much stuff.
My closet gradually filled with black and white clothes. My white sofa wore a slipcover—practical for teenaged boys lounging on it. My walls, painted neutral tan and cream in every house because they matched the furniture we had. Part-time jobs that practically fit around the kids’ and Jeff’s schedules. Nothing wrong with any of those things—and no huge regrets about them either. But…
I know I am not the same woman who wore the purple skirt—and yet she is still a part of me, a part I'm gradually rediscovering. I see her in the furniture I bought last fall just because I liked the style. The lime-green rug in my office. The red shirt with flowers. The highlights in my hair for the first time ever. None of them are practical—and none were easy decisions!
In fact, this week I kept the shoes I bought—the fun shoes—the shoes I worried might be a little too young for me—in the box, pretty sure I’d return them. They just aren’t practical. After I saw the photo of the purple skirt, I threw the box away and put on the shoes.
My focus for 2019 is to help revitalize the church Jeff is serving. However, I also plan to be more intentional about revitalizing myself.
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