Trying this again...

Ok, I am clearly not making the point I wanted to make... so I shall try again.

What unnerved me about the exchange with my Yoga pant, non Yoga practicing neighbor is the assertion that I have more time on my hands - therefore I dress I certain way. As with all backhanded compliments - it is actually A) mean-spirited in nature and B) it actually I think highlights something about herself, with which she is dissatisfied.

My point on Monday on Facebook and with this mornings blog post - was to say A) it actually takes no time, maybe less - to dress as I did on Monday and folks, I am not talking fancy here... I literally mean it took me 5 minutes. Now given I have a great and very easy to manage head of hair, but still - her notion that I got up early and worked hard on getting dressed - not accurate. Have I given time to my overall appearance and wharedrobe - yes, why yes I have... I actually think most of my yoga stuff is not all that chic...

My point is, I have made a very active and conscious choice to express myself through how I choose to go out and about. Yes, I wore my Yoga pant from my house, to school to drop off L and then to the gym. That seemed time efficient and a very normal thing to do.

I also made a choice to change at the gym in order to go out to lunch with E, at a reasonably nice, yet casual restaurant.

I think if you want your image and your brand to be Yoga Mom on the Go, I am down with that. I am not sure it is appropriate. I mean I suppose you could make it your brand to go about town in a bikini and Ughs!. Strange, but whatever. H suggested maybe trendy bathrobes... Can you imagine...

What I am saying is my neighbor could totally go my route, it takes no more or less time than HER CHOICE. I have never called her out on her attire choices until now. Totally her choice. She brought it up. Do I think that maybe, just maybe as a culture we need to be less casual, yes I do. Sorry to be all Miss Manners, but I think we are just too casual and frankly I am not sure it lends much to equation, but my real point here and what ticked me off Monday was the notion that in some way I was wasting my time... I was showing her up...

What I am saying is as a culture, I think, we have lost site of things such as being appropriate and investing time in ourselves and what our image might be, there was a time when Sunday best, was Sunday best... Google "pictures of Audrey Hepburn" even while in Africa, doing humanitarian work, she took time on her appearance. She gave time to herself and to others. Not out of vanity, but out of self love, I would say. There is for me anyway, a powerful lesson there...

And as I pointed out to H - I am not telling anyone what to do nor do I think I am right or wrong on this point... I am only telling you what I think... as my facebook says, "I cannot tell you what you want to know, Only what I know... and folks what I know is it took me 5 minutes to get dressed on Monday morning and I know I do it for me...