Clearance Dress Clothes

When I started my first job out of college I bought droves of clearance dress clothes from The Limited. I had herringbone pants, silky button-down shirts that were one size too big, heels I could not walk in, jackets in a variety of colors that insulated my fear sweat and an arsenal of bras with padding.

I cut my hair short and quit coloring it so blonde, and every time I walked into the office I made sure the blue all-seeing eye tattoo on my forearm was covered. To this day I still kick for not enjoying it more when the ink was still bright.

I gained 15 pounds and cried when my coworker saw a picture of me from college and said, “you used to look so skinny.”

I removed the nose wring that I had worn valiantly since a sweaty man pierced it through my nostril when I was 18 in nowhere South Dakota.

Fake it until you make it was a concept that was not new to me but I had never dived into it at this magnitude.

To top off my meek existence, I even found a perfectly fine boyfriend who liked that version of me but who did not like when I wore vans with my dress clothes. I know this because he told me.

This phrase, fake it until you make it, wrung in my ears for most of my teens and young adult life. I believed it was the solution because that’s what women told me, mentors and friends, and maybe even my mother.

What they don’t tell you is that fake it till you will never completely consume you. Yes, eventually you may not know what is fake and what is real but that nauseous feeling of inauthenticity in the depths of your stomach never goes away. You just get used to being sick and having those acid vomits after your first cup of coffee in the morning.

For those of you that don’t know, I would like to tell you what fake it until you make it got me.

It got me a wardrobe full of clothes that don’t fit right and eventually the sight of buttons made me sad.

It got me hair that accentuated my weight gain as I ate my emotions in an office whose thermostat was broken.

It got me a tattoo that slowly faded to grey without ever having enjoyed the sun.

It got me a hole in my nose that would bleed profusely when I decided to re-pierce crouched on my bathroom sink one and a half years after I started that job.

And, it got me a boyfriend who dumped over a text message.