Making Do

At the beginning of 2019 I made a public pledge not to buy any more new clothing for a year. At last count I had 43 t-shirts in my closet, and that doesn’t count the shirts that I’ve set aside to alter or repair. I really don’t need anything new. Four years into that automatically-renewing pledge, I have more or less held the line, and have only purchased new clothing that I couldn’t make myself or wouldn’t want to buy second hand: a bathing suit, a couple of sports bras, socks, and underwear. I have been given socks and two sweaters as gifts, and I purchased a pair of used jeans so I could learn how to hem them. I don’t miss shopping for clothes.

A few months ago I was walking through the mall and caught sight of myself in a full-length mirror. I was far from trendy-looking. The legs of my jeans, which I’ve owned and worn for over a decade, were not cut the same way as any of the jeans I could see on people around me. My v-neck shirt did not reveal any cleavage and hung loose over my belly. My boots were plain black Doc Martens, which I’ve also had for years. I was decidedly out of fashion.

‘Oh well,’ I said to myself. ‘This is what your values look like.’ And I went about my day, satisfied.

Making, mending, and repairing clothing and other objects has become a way of life for me. Shortly after making my no-new-clothing pledge, for example, I used a glue gun and grey fabric to repair my expensive Sony headphones which had just fallen apart. I’m wearing those headphones as I write this. That same day I also repaired my cat’s scratching post, keeping it out of the landfill for four more years until a couple of weeks ago, when I finally replaced it. My Facebook page is a chronicle of my adventures in making new garments and experimenting with upcycling and alterations.

Yesterday I patched two bedsheets that we’ve had for over a dozen years, and which were finally starting to show some wear. For the red sheet I tried to match the fabric as closely as I could. For the blue sheet I used a blue-and-red fabric that looks like patchwork itself, for an exuberant display of visible mending. This task took a bit of research and maybe an hour of my time, and I felt very pleased with myself afterwards. How many more years will these sheets last us now that I’ve patched them?

“Zero,” wrote one family member, commenting on my Facebook post. “I would have just bought new sheets,” commented another.

I went from proud to zero in sixty seconds. I spent hours ruminating over these comments, wondering just what my family thought of me and why they would say these things. It was just a hint of rejection, just a whiff, but I was levelled.

After a lot of work over the last few years, I understand now that I am very sensitive to rejection. It comes with the territory for my brand of mental illness. Still, I was shocked at just how hard I was hit by these comments that were probably not meant to be malicious.

Contrast this with two days ago, when as part of a meditation session I was advised to set an intention for the day. I realized that right in that moment, I didn’t want to be anything other than myself. A realization like this has been a long time coming — say about thirty-five years.

And you know what? Even feeling as rotten as I do right now, I still don’t want to be anyone other than myself. I don’t want to be the person who sends a sheet to a landfill just because of a couple of holes. I don’t want to be the person who buys herself a new shirt every time she’s bored. I don’t want to be the person who veers from her proper course just because other people wouldn’t do it the same way.

I will continue to do my damnedest to be myself. I will continue to resist.