Recently, I caught my reflection in a window and was overcome with how much the image reminded me of my mother. It was the trousers that did it. I was wearing mum’s trousers, well not her actual trousers, just ones that were exactly her style. How did this happen? When did I start following in her sense of style?
The trousers are a checked affair, tapered jegging types, grey overall with colours muted in. I bought them in a charity shop, I buy most of my clothes in charity shops, not just for the bargain prices but due to the lack of clothes shops in our town and surrounding area. I had been liking them, that is until now. Now that I realise I am dressing like mother, I suddenly want to burn them, what’s with that? I love mum, after years of a haphazard garish fashion sense she has grown into an older woman of style. So what is the problem with liking the same things? Is it a challenge to my identity, a fear of ageing? Or do we all just want to avoid turning into our mothers?
They say, don’t they that if you want to see what a woman will age like, look to her mother, or reversely for men , to the father. Is this true? Is it inevitable that we become our parents, like it or not? People have commented in the past, ‘Oh you are just like your mother’ and meant it as a compliment, while I have seethed. Next to my brother, the family link was clear, with definite features of our father, I never used to mind that until the day i looked in to an all surrounding mirror in a changing room and saw the nose and eyebrows of him, shocked that yes I looked like a middle aged man. Yes that was a time to learn from, to begin making more effort with my appearance. Now, my brother was a very handsome man but those features are not so attractive on me, as a female.
My mother is a very attractive woman, a woman of great substance and these days I feel proud to know her. I just can’t come to terms with turning into a version of her. I really don’t know why this is the case. There are worse people I could resemble and worse tastes to have. I am an older woman, over fifty now, I am a mother to an adult child, well in theory at least. Is it just a rebellion in me, a refusal to accept myself as a mother, or as another? Is it just my sense of freedom it impinges on? Am I secretly enjoying morphing into someone else, have I given up on my own identity? Am I rejecting myself, as I reject these mother like trousers? Ooh such thoughts to think through.
I just don’t know, I do know though, that the trousers have been washed and now sit in the going back to charity bag. I am not ready to wear mum’s trouser’s yet.
Here is to wearing our own trousers!
Chris.xx
Living With ME 