I'm trying to figure this out.
Do I dress differently here?
When I was in America, people (such as isabella) said, "Oh, you have such European style now!" or something along those lines.
Which is cool and all. The general stereotype of 'European style' is a good one.
But I don't feel especially european. I feel like I'm wearing all the same stuff I always wore. Or, maybe something has changed, but I'm no more European than I was before.
I have a different hypothesis.
I'm more... myself.
That's such a cliche. I'm ashamed of myself for even thinking it. But at the same time, I feel like it's true.
Ponder this- People always say that other people change most over the summer. I've always assumed it appeared that way because we don't notice the gradual changes while they happen. But what if people change over the summer because they're not in school? In other words, they're torn out of their hive mind peer group and forced to figure out what they like?
Get it? Absence of peers -> Forced individuality. While being alone all the time sucks (and I've spent a good portion of most of my summers that way), there's a certain freedom in it- there's no one to impress.
(I, of course, would go out looking for people to impress, from an early age. Be it on the Lonelygirl15 message boards or walking around Old Town, I always made myself visible. But that's another rant)
So... Now I've moved to Switzerland. For the first few days, completely isolated. After that, I met people, but I was still sort of living in my own little world where I didn't care what people thought.
Or, perhaps, I did care, in the sense that I wanted to give them a good idea of who I was, from the start. Yes, that's it. I had no desire to blend in. I felt this need to make my identity apparent to anyone and everyone. As if to say, "Do not mistake me for anyone other than myself"
So I started wearing the sorts of things I liked to wear.
Whereas in America, there were kinds of expectations. We're a very welcoming bunch over there, and I can't think of a demographic that we collectively dislike, but once we have an idea in our head about what someone's supposed to be like, it's hard to shake.
I hate to admit it, but I definitely fell into that trap where I would think, "Oh, I can't wear that, because it's not the sort of thing that I usually wear, and people seem to be okay with me the way I am, and I don't want to jeopardize that."
Isn't it fun being a seventeen year old girl with insecurities and such?
This part is fun though. Now that no one expects anything of me, I can do all the things that I always wanted to do at home. Like wear my new intense blue headphones in public.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on my 'new style' which is really not unlike my 'old style', if we're using those terms.
Right now, I'm wearing dark jeans, ugg boots, and my green Nantucket sweatshirt.
I know. So european.
Love always,
Clara
P.S. When I was writing "Nantucket" just now, I initially typed "Nucket" and didn't realize why it was wrong.
Hooray!
