One Dress. One Year.
— An Addendum
If you’ve found your way here, it’s probably because you ran across my book, One Dress. One Year., one way or another.
Been a weird few years since that came out.
Something nobody told me when I set out to write about my experience — and something that I would not have believed if they had — was how much I would change in my early 20’s. Because duh, that’s how life works.
Which is to say, if I had either the dress project or the book to do over again, I would do a thousand things differently — from the tone and the focus to differentiating myself from the folks I took inspiration from. In the last several years, I have learned so much about things like white saviorism and activism that would shape a deeply different approach now.
But part of me wonders, if I had it to do over again, whether I would do it at all.
Because when I look back, I don’t see a confident teenager who wanted to change the world.
I see a terrified young woman desperate to do something — anything — to satisfy the god she believed in and the evangelical machine she was trapped inside.
In retrospect, I can see that, as I was writing, the foundations of my belief system were crumbling — and that comes through in more than a few places. Which has made the reality of this book existing in the world an odd thing to say the least.
Every once in awhile, I still hear from someone who is inspired by the book. And if that’s you, that’s awesome. But I also want you to know that the person who wrote that book isn’t who I am anymore.
Most days, I don’t know what I believe. But I know it’s definitely not the god you might find in those pages.
And I thought it would be best for all of us if I were clear about that.
Because I don’t want my words to cause you to feel what I felt for so long. If you are passionate about a cause and want to do something to change it, I am here to cheer you on. But if you are asking questions or desperately grasping at straws or trying to win the love of a god you’re not sure you even like, I want you to know that you don’t have to.
Learning that has brought me more freedom than any part of this project ever did. And damn, am I grateful for that.
One final note — if you’re disappointed to learn this about me, you’re entitled to those feelings. But please know that I won’t be engaging with them in any way (through email, social media, etc.). I’m grateful that you’ve come along with me on this journey in one way or another, but it’s also okay if this is where we part ways. And I wish you nothing but the best wherever the road takes you.