“I can’t wear jeans anymore.”
I’ve heard women say that over the years, and every time I do, I find myself curious.
I often wonder how they arrived at that conclusion.
Sometimes the answer comes quickly.
“My body has changed.”
“I don’t think they’re flattering.”
“I’ve outgrown that stage of life.”
Other times the answer is less clear.
The thought has been there for so long that it simply feels true.
Of course, jeans aren’t the only thing women tell themselves they can’t wear.
I’ve heard women say they can’t wear sleeveless tops, hats, or skirts above the knee. I’ve heard that shoes should match handbags and jewelry should all be the same color. I’ve heard women say they can’t mix patterns, wear bright colors, or pull off a certain style.
The stories are different. The women are different. Yet the sentence is often the same.
“I can’t wear that.”
You know, these days when I hear a woman say she can’t wear something, my first instinct isn’t to convince her otherwise.
It’s to wonder just how long she’s been carrying that thought around.
Because I’ve noticed there’s a difference between a preference and a conclusion.
Saying, “I don’t like yellow,” is different from saying, “I can’t wear yellow.”
One is a preference. The other is a conclusion.
The same is true of hats.
“I don’t enjoy wearing hats” is a preference. “I’m not a hat person” is a conclusion.
One is simply a matter of taste. The other is a decision that may have been made years ago and never revisited.
Most of the time, those conclusions don’t arrive with much fanfare.
Sometimes a comment lands at exactly the wrong moment. Sometimes it’s a disappointing shopping trip, a changing body, or an offhand remark that stays with us far longer than it should.
Life kept going.
The conclusion stayed.
Have you ever picked something up, and looked at it for a moment, and put it right back? Not because you disliked it or tried it on and decided it wasn’t for you.
You simply knew it wasn’t “your thing.”
Or so you thought.
The interesting part is how quickly it happens.So quickly, in fact, that it may not feel like a decision at all.
You see the item, hear the thought, and move on without debate, consideration, or even a second look.
The conclusion has already done its work.
And that’s the moment I find most interesting, because sometimes we don’t reject the item. Sometimes we never really consider it.
The decision was made years ago, and it no longer feels like a decision at all.
It feels like a fact.
What interests me most isn’t figuring out where every rule came from or deciding whether it should stay or go.
It’s whether we’ve ever stopped to look at it again, or whether we’ve even stopped long enough to reconsider it.
Because some thoughts become so familiar that they stop feeling like conclusions.
They begin to feel like just the way things have always been.
The woman standing in the closet today may be very different from the woman who first reached that conclusion.
Maybe the rule still fits perfectly. Maybe it doesn’t.
That’s not really the point.
The point is that the woman living this chapter gets a say in the matter.
And she may not have realized she actually does.
The next time you hear yourself say, “I can’t wear that,” pause for a moment.
Then get curious.
When did I decide that?
Have I ever stopped long enough to reconsider it?
Do I still believe that?
Because “the way things have always been” and “the way I want things to be now” aren’t always the same thing.
And that’s worth thinking about.
I do this all the time. Its automatic.Thank you for naming it.