One of the reasons I like warm weather about a thousand times better than cold weather is the clothes. I’m a pretty simple girl. I like warm weather clothes because they are easy. Shorts, tees, and flip flops, and out the door you go.
Winter clothes? Not so much.
Our first really cold air of the season arrived this week, forcing me to haul out the sweaters and take my wool winter overcoat out of the drycleaning bag. (Sidebar: not many summer clothes need to be dry cleaned. I’m just saying.) I also had to locate my gloves and my scarf, and of course Spawn’s winter coat and gloves and scarf and earmuffs (because we do NOT do hats here) (it’s a sensory thing), and go outside and warm up the car and and and….
Bleh.
It’s an ordeal, this getting ready to go outside during winter. It’s a toss-up for me, which I despise more: being cold or bundling up. Obviously I hate to be cold, which is why I wear the sweater and the coat and the scarf. But the sweater and the coat and the scarf make me feel like a walrus, and about as attractive, too. And the thing that wears my nerves the most is the restricted movement of my arms at the elbows. I can’t freely move my arms. I am debilitated. It makes me crazy.
Having had Spawn in my life, and all the kid’s issues, has served to highlight for me my own issues. Spawn can be very sensitive to things like texture or noise, which is why we don’t ask the kid to eat certain foods or go to places like the movies or the circus. (Not that I miss the circus all that much.) Shoes that lace up — well, let’s just say that athletic shoes are a waste of money if they come with laces. I’m very glad that clothing manufacturers started printing size and care information directly on the inside of their garments instead of on a tag that would have to be cut out. There should be a law. I recognize some of Spawn’s quirks as mainlined from me, and I didn’t realize I had so many issues until I started recognizing them in my kid. Most of my issues are clothing-related, though I do have a few food-texture ones, too (beans, I’m looking at you).
Winter clothing seems to be the worst in the list of offenders. Turtlenecks, tucked in shirts, sleeves that won’t stay pushed up, collars that gap open, tags sewn into the side seam of shirts, button-front shirts, pant legs that don’t quite reach the floor (the bane of the long-legged woman), pointed-toe shoes, heels of any sort… my list seems to go on and on. Which is why when I find something that I feel comfortable in, I wear the shit out of it. I could probably reduce the clothing in my closet to a handful of go-to outfits if I really took the time to be brutal. I could live in a pair of yoga pants and a 3/4 sleeve v-neck tee, provided it got no colder than about 65 degrees.
So yeah. Maybe I’m not cut out for living in colder climes.
— Mox
Middleground 