somebody else's song

let me first begin by saying, after a few notable bouts with self-esteem, self-identity and the solidity thereof, i've come to a point where i think i really like myself. this includes my idiosyncracies, my nerdy leanings, my soft, so-called-white-sounding speaking voice, all the way down to the gap in my two front teeth, and my much improved since junior high school sense of fashion.

nonetheless, one of my friends from church is a consistently sharp dresser. so i enlisted his services to help me be a better one myself. so he stops by after church, pulls all the clothes out of my closet and organizes them by color. he starts taking my articles of clothing and re-matching them into "ensembles" and giving me some pointers on some basic things that i'm missing (like pristine white sneakers and white crew neck tees to wear under certain shirts).

great stuff. definite need to know. so he put together some outfits that i thought were pretty inventive. at least, i would have never thought to put them together like that. i'm too familiar with my own shirts and always tend to wear them with the same thing.

so then, i rocked one of his choices at church next sunday. one of my favorite shirts with jeans, but with a blazer worn over it and some wheat colored timberland knock-offs by tommy hilfiger. i thought it looked "okay", but apparently i underestimated it because the response was overwhelming. all the girls who see me every sunday were saying "wow mark, you look really good today!" even my brothers were givin' me props sayin' "well alright then, go 'head!"

i thanked them and kept it movin', but it was a bittersweet triumph in a sense. it was like the compliments were coming towards me, but from their getting re-routed in my head to someone else. i wasn't even very comfortable in the clothes. i felt out of my element compulsively making sure the cuffs of my shirt properly extended past the short sleeves of a blazer not quite the length of my lanky long limbs.

it wasn't me they were applauding per se, but my friend's fashion sense. the literal complaint within was "why has no one gone this ga ga over something i put together?"* it bothered me that i didn't have control over this "power to wow". because i didn't feel like i could elicit this same response at will and of my own ability, i didn't feel like i really had a legitimate claim to any of the fruits thereof. people, i got upstaged by my own clothes and that's just a dang shame.

"'cause i remind myself of somebody else / i'm feelin' like i'm chasing / like i'm facing myself alone / i've got somebody else's thoughts in my head / i want some of my own" - lifehouse, "somebody else's song"

*actually they have. i got rave reviews for an invitational flyer i did for our church. but that's something from within my element, so i'm discounting it for the purposes of this particular rant.