Fashion School Diaries : 1

Fashion School Diaries: The Feeling I Could Never Quite Name

Trying to explain how I changed my career path into fashion has been so hard. It is one of the most pivotal parts of my life, yet, I still feel fuzzy and hazy when I reflect about it. I am hoping blogging about it in my little corner of the internet will hopefully be helpful to me, and also others who are considering a "big leap".

This has led me lately to thinking a lot about the past stories I've told myself. I used these stories to convince myself, to ease a troubled mind, and through that to create a sense of control when everything felt so indecisive.

The past stories I'm reflecting about are not the dramatic ones, but the quiet ones.

There are so many beliefs we form when we're young about who we are, what we're good at, and what we're supposed to do with our lives.

Sometimes those stories fit. Sometimes they don't.

And sometimes it takes years, even decades, to realize the difference.

What had me thinking about this is that recently, I found myself looking through some old journals that were from my time in college. I don't often look through my old journals (I have them going back to when I was nine years old.), but they provided a good distraction when I was trying to organize the closet that they are stored in. I came across something I hadn't expected to find, but I am thankful for my distraction because it provided some insight to something I don't know that I realized before.

One word appeared over and over:

Bored.

The word startled me.

I don't remember feeling bored, and it's not a word I use often. Seeing it repeated across multiple entries felt like hearing a message from a younger version of myself that I wasn't ready to understand at the time.

As I kept reading, I found more clues.

I wrote about not being interested in my major. I questioned whether I had chosen the right path. Yet tucked between those observations was an unspoken rule I had created for myself:

I couldn't change my mind.

Changing felt dangerous and actually petrifying. It would mean disappointing people. It would mean admitting I had made the wrong choice. Worse, it might mean I wasn't the person I was supposed to be.

So I stayed.

Looking back now, I can see that this is the real story.

Not the story of how I became interested in fashion.

Not even the story of studying a field that ultimately wasn't right for me.

It's the story of recognizing that something felt wrong and spending years trying not to know it.

Work has always been important to me. I've always loved working hard. In fact, hard work became one of the ways I learned to cope with uncertainty. If I kept moving forward, stayed busy, focused on my grades, met expectations, then maybe the doubts would eventually disappear.

But they didn't.

I remember walking back to my dorm after my first practicum during junior year.

Practicums were a required part of my program, and that afternoon something settled heavily in my chest.

I didn't like it.

I couldn't figure out why. I think I realized it in the middle of the session, that i wished I was anywhere but there. I felt so nervous, so out of place, and just so off.

I had this immediate strong sense that I just didn't want to do it.

I went back to my dorm room, laid on my bed, and sat with that realization for hours.

What followed was a kind of loneliness I didn't have words for at the time.

I didn't feel like I had anyone I could safely tell. There was no one I could admit these thoughts to without fear of being judged, questioned, or encouraged to just keep going.

So I did what seemed like the only thing I could do.

I kept my secret and kept going.

A few years later, while visiting New York City and looking at graduate schools, those feelings resurfaced with surprising force.

I remember feeling inspired by everything around me. The energy of the city. The fashion. The shops and the hotels. The creativity that seemed to exist around every corner.

At the same time, I felt something almost unbearable.

I wished I had chosen a different path.

I remember thinking:

Maybe it's not too late to switch.

And then immediately pushing the thought away.

When I arrived home from the trip, I even pulled out old aptitude tests from high school. Careers like fashion design and hotel management appeared repeatedly in the results.

Seeing that felt strangely validating.

But it also felt irrelevant.

By then, I had already convinced myself that changing directions wasn't an option.

The thoughts followed me through the remainder of college. They turned into insomnia. They turned into long nights at the library. I told myself I was being disciplined and committed.

And maybe I was.

But looking back, I think staying busy also gave me a way to avoid sitting with what I already knew.

I finished my degree.

Then I went to graduate school.

And the feeling followed me there, too.

I remember a classmate withdrawing from the program only a few weeks after it began.

My immediate thought was:

I wish that were me.

Even now, writing those words feels uncomfortable.

But they're true.

By then there was too much invested. Time. Money. Expectations. Identity.

Leaving felt impossible.

So once again, I stayed.

During graduate school in Chicago, I spent hours walking along Lake Michigan.

Walking became my thinking time.

My imagining time.

The place where I could quietly acknowledge things that felt impossible to say out loud.

In the evenings, I stitched.

Small embroidery projects. Cross-stitch patterns. A weaving loom that had followed me from my teenage years into adulthood became what I looked forward to on the weekends.

Those creative moments felt deeply important, even if I couldn't explain why.

Now I think they were reminders of a part of myself that was still there, patiently waiting for my attention.

When I try to describe those years, I keep returning to the same image.

An ill-fitting sock.

When I was little, sometimes I would accidentally put my sock on wrong so that the heel sat on top of my foot. At first it felt awkward and distracting. But if I ignored it long enough, I would adjust.

Eventually, I barely noticed it.

That's what those years felt like.

Every morning, I put on the sock.

Slightly wrong.

Slightly off.

By the time I got to class or work, I had adapted. I could do everything I was supposed to do. I became so good at "faking-it", I nearly forgot that I was actually "faking-it". From the outside, everything appeared perfectly fine.

But underneath it all, something never quite fit.

I think that's why finding those old journals affected me so deeply.

The word bored wasn't really about boredom.

It was evidence.

Evidence that some part of me recognized the mismatch much earlier than I was willing to admit.

I wasn't lost because I lacked discipline.

I wasn't unhappy because I didn't work hard enough.

I wasn't failing.

I was simply trying to force myself into a life that didn't fit.

And sometimes it takes years to understand the difference.

I have so much compassion now for the version of myself who couldn't leave, couldn't speak the truth out loud, couldn't imagine another path forward.

And I have just as much compassion for anyone who finds themselves in that place today.

The people who sense that something isn't right.

The people who keep going because changing feels impossible.

The people who think they've invested too much to start over.

Sometimes clarity arrives quickly.

Sometimes it takes years.

For me, it took much longer than I expected.

But it was worth listening to that feeling.

Even after all that time.

Especially after all that time.

xoxo,

Jaime