Clothes shopping is a hazardous business.

[Muttering to self]: “Sneakers. Sneakers. Where are the sneakers? There are some – OH! Shiny silver! Designer! Italian! These are shoes to go with dresses I cannot remotely afford. They should be worn at sunset, in Rome. At that fountain where people make wishes in the Audrey Hepburn movie…was it Audrey? What did I come in here for? Why did I not bring someone with me who remembers what I came in here for?”

There are other hazards, too. There is the risk that you will fall into a pit of judgement.

[Again muttering]: “Short people. Short people. All of these are clothes for short people. Who can wear these pants? If my legs were this short, they wouldn’t even reach the ground.”

Or, alternately: “I am too tall for anything. There is no such thing as me. I am a size that does not exist. And I have always suspected that my feet were shaped like cod fish. Now it’s been proven.”

[Insert sigh of such intense exasperation that I blow my own hair straight up in the air.]

It is much too easy to forget that I have choices, that I have clothes, that I have a washing machine and dryer to clean them in my own house, that my long legs are both healthy and can carry me wherever I wish.

Like so many other ordinary things, clothes shopping is really ascesis.

-Photo by Christian Fregnan on Unsplash