It's Leap Day, and as we catapult into March, I feel an increasing urge to manage minor panic attacks on a near-daily basis - this is almost always a trying time of year, with high-stakes standardized tests looming large, raw weather (I know, I know, we NorthEasterners have been spoiled this year ...), and the sort of general malaise that results from exhaustion and mid-school-year burn-out. One of my super-motivated 7th graders recently had a mini-melt-down due to academic stress. I tried to remind him to find balance and seek the little things in daily life that make him happy, and promptly had one of those lightbulb-over-head moments in which one realizes that one's own trite advice is actually relatively sound. While I'm drowning in paper and the excessive grading/frustration that comes with assigning an offensive amount of work to lackadaiscal tweens, I do have an extremely organized and satisfying system for my closet. Last summer I took on the task of compartmentalizing my wardrobe in the most functional, efficient way I could. This involved some painfully amateur sketches that showcased my poor sense of spatial relations, a trip to Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and a frustrating week or two - but the result has been so worth the hassle.
{Top shelf: sewing kit, clutches, free perfumes from my jobs at Sephora and Nordstrom Cosmetics. Bar: Work blouses and tops, belt ring, and rotating tie rack for easy necklace display.}
{More work tops, work bottoms (skirts and pants), large bags/totes on wall hooks.}
{Neurotically labeled shoes in their original boxes for neat storage. I rue the day I gave my awesome Staples label-maker away.}
{Handbags, dresses, and jackets live together, perpendicular to work clothes. Dude, I am such a girly girl - strikingly apparent when viewing the physical evidence.}
{Boots and wedges nestle along the floor; stackable shoe-bins house warm-weather shoes.}
{Various cheap-thrill scarves hang on wall-hooks next door to dresses.}
Getting myself dressed and put together for the work day helps me center myself and start the morning off in a positive, energized way. What may seem superficial or like sheer vanity to some actually helps me to be effective in my life, and serves as a creative outlet when all I want to do is crawl back under the covers and throw my alarm clock across the room. The personal style blogs I most enjoy following are those where readers can see a glimpse of "regular girls in real life" presenting themselves with vitality and joy. As Audrey Lorde has said, "Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare."
How do you organize aspects of your daily life that could otherwise get out of control quickly? Before I overhauled my closet, I was a chronic clothing-piler. Piles accumulated everywhere like February snow ... hmm, I suppose we really have been spoiled this year.
Nevertheless, I can't wait for spring.
-xo
