This outfit was an attempt to be gentle on myself today.

Yesterday I got an email saying that my future co-worker will be moving out of state and because of this, I would be responsible for more work and administrative duties until they can find someone to replace him. This really threw me off. Starting any new job is hard. And although I really do love my job, it’s not an easy one. There’s still a lot of unknowns and details I’ll need to sort out in the coming weeks. Needless to say I was feeling pretty stressed out by this unexpected news. I tried to stay positive about it though, and by the next morning, I had begun to feel a little better.

In getting dressed this morning, I wanted to be kind to myself and intentionally indulged in my current favorites. There’s nothing new here. Ya’ll have seen me wear these things a million times. Hopefully the context of this outfit is at least marginally interesting. By indulging in old favorites, rather than being driven by a desire to wear something new or more interesting, I was able to learn what were truly my favorite things to wear. My only constraint was that it needed to be work appropriate. I’m lucky to work in a somewhat casual work environment, where the only rules for women seem to be no jeans and nothing sexy.

Today, the purple Paloma Wool dress arrived. It looked really nice and the quality was good, but sadly, it was too tight especially around the bust area. The dress was only available in size 38 (Spain), sizing up was not an option. Back it goes.

I looked at literally every one of my go-to online retailers for a dress, but didn’t like anything in my price range. I even looked at the Zara dress page. I hadn’t visited Zara’s website, mind you, for years. The dress page alone was huge. I felt like I was infinitely scrolling. There were a lot of interesting dresses with modern high fashion-y cuts. Whenever I analyzed them closer though, one thing or another, would cause me to lose interest. How could I literally scroll through >100 dresses, and not like a single one?! Maybe I’m being way too picky.

In the end, I went to the RR and bought a simple silk black dress by Eileen Fisher that was still new with tags, lol. How anti-climatic right?

[outfit: ATM striped knit top, Elizabeth Suzann twill clyde pants (old), *SAS suntimer sandals, *Dagne Dover midi tote, *Cluse watch]