a different kind of back to school issue
On fashion, popularity, and youthful delusions
As I mentioned at the start of the month, August has always been my New Year starting point. For all of my junior high & high school and yes, even some of my college years, the Seventeen magazine Back to School issue was my bible for all things Cool Girl. I asked for a subscription every Christmas and as summer wound down, I’d wait anxiously for the mailman to bring this tome so I could start my renewed journey toward popularity - not the “Oh she’s so sweet” Sally Field kind but the jawdropping mesmerizing Heather Locklear kind. Obviously Seventeen magazine would reveal the necessary steps. It’s a wonder I don’t have pronounced trust issues.
While the Back to School issue was my Holy Grail, I still pored over every other month’s beauty articles with the intensity of Cagney & Lacey at a crime scene. (I’m not sure if this is an accurate analogy as I never watched it, I just know they were serious lady cops in the ‘80s; I was watching a lot of Fame* instead - hence the “thigh shapers” obsession maybe?). I tried every product Seventeen suggested for my blotchy face and lifeless hair and whatever other body part was probably lacking. And somehow, I projected a remarkable confidence amidst angst in my journals that I rediscovered a few years ago when I decided to read from one at my 30th high school reunion.
*Bonus video linked in the journal post!
Anyway, spoiler alert, my quest was never fulfilled; I remain a Sally Field and am okay with this. But every August I still use this time for revisiting who I think I am/who I want to be and it usually starts with clothes. Because I’m finally trying to embrace my aging body & self [and because I was trapped at Nordstrom Rack awaiting an order fulfillment], I lately discovered the joy of blouses. They are comfortably flowy and a bit sexy1, great for hot days and/or hot flashes, easy to take care of, and look professional yet fun. I’m not giving up my cadre of cardigans because they are also professional yet fun and I’m still chilly more often than not, at least during the day. Plus part of my identity remains teacher/librarian and the cardigan is a uniform requirement.
I’m not exactly sure what productive things I’ll be doing with all of my days now that I don’t have a classroom anymore, though I will substitute teach & volunteer at my old school because I love them, and I do need a place beyond the grocery store to wear those cardigans and new blouses. I’ve also started working at more comic conventions as a personal assistant, where I can usually wear whatever I want that is comfortable and tasteful/not distracting so my sweater staples + new blousy finds fit those criteria there as well; if I can keep getting paid to travel, I will be shifting into con life. And buying more blouses? Though there are a few people in the convention world whose impeccable sense of fashion send me back to 1985 with my anxious feelings of frumpy inadequacy; I might need a Queer Eye intervention. Or I can make myself reread some of Teen Me’s journal entries where I was magically confident, and give Old Me a break already.
Says the 50+ year old suburban mom lady…
I convinced my mom to let me enter the Seventeen model contest as a jr high star-crazed gal in 1985ish... mouthful of metal braces and pink jumpsuit beauty that I was. I didn’t get a call, but oh I had dreams... 😆
I took waited eagerly every summer for the back to school issue. Never once did I achieve the effortless cool of my idol Molly Ringwald.