Stubbornness and Sense of Self

Ask me what it's like to deal with stubborn or frugal people, and I'll probably recount a tale about my parents. Perhaps I'll talk about my mom going to three supermarkets to find the right price for produce, and never buying anything that isn't on sale or is higher than what she thinks it's worth, even when we need it. My dad will buy things when he needs them, sometimes picking up the first thing he sees, and my childhood is filled with “don't tell your mother” purchases that she would always discover, subsequently interrogating us. My dad is especially stubborn when it comes to health issues. Though he's complained of shoulder pain for days, he insists that working on a friend's car yesterday has nothing to do with it. He also doesn't think it odd that we noticed a protrusion, about the size of a golf ball, clearly visible under his shirt on top of his left shoulder. It only hurts when he moves it a certain way, so he just won't move that way.

Of course, any of my close friends reading this may already be formulating a comment about apples and trees. I remember the time I ignored internal bleeding for a few weeks, hoping it would just go away, and ended up getting major surgery and missing work for a month. When it comes to fashion, my worst inherited traits form like Voltron and hold me back. I'll insist a shirt bought in a sporting good store or worse, a dollar store, is just as good as any name brand department store. I'll even defend to the death any of my black jeans and shirts that have faded to a seventy percent gray.

Since college, my friends have often made attempts to get me to update my wardrobe. Rarely I would cave, buying a shirt here and there, or simply incorporating presents from relatives into the rotation. A new dress shirt is nice, but with faded black jeans and sneakers it can go to waste. I imagine dealing with me can be as frustrating to people as dealing with my folks can be for me. Yet in fourteen years, my friend Rey has never given up, even though I listen to a fraction of his advice, often much later, and sometimes too late. I'm trying not to think about the fact that, by the end of this month, he and his family will be relocating to the plains of middle Pennsylvania, a land of affordable housing where his children will find better schools than in New York and his in-laws will be near. Working with a fellow member of our old college crew for the last six years has been fun, and it will definitely be a different environment after he's gone. I hate change of any kind, an artifact of my stubbornness, and if I had things my way I'd still be in college with all my friends, drawing and talking about comics. The process of change is rough, but often is followed by a settling into a new and better norm that would not otherwise have been attained. Gain occurs when loss makes room.

After hearing my Dominican buddy try to speak my language and call me a “Freaking stunad!” an incalculable number of times, I eventually cave and try his suggestions. With his time in NY now dwindling, we went shopping at lunch today, and breaking me out of my mold was no easy task. When TheWriteJerry gasped in wonder at $7.98 dress shirts in a sporting goods store, my instinctive reaction was the same as his. Rey shook his head. I would be spending more than 10 dollars on a shirt today. For the first time, I would be spending more than 30, visiting Old Navy and other stores. It was a difficult process for all involved, and a long lunch, but I ended up with some nice things.

For the most part, price wasn't a huge issue. I approached the day with the mentality that my credit card was in fact a gift card, so I can lament the bill at the end of the month. In some areas though I was unflinching. I would not spend $129 on a pair of brown dress shoes in Nordstrom, as nice as they were, although tomorrow I will be looking elsewhere for something similar and more reasonable. One of the biggest problems with the whole process was my definition of what MCF wears and doesn't wear. I don't wear jackets like that. That neck thing is something for surfers, indie kids or perhaps Josh Hartnett. It's not something “someone like me” can pull off. Rey offered a lot of good advice today, from the slimming qualities of vertical stripes to the contour creating cut of the right jacket to the distracting abilities of the right accessories. I wish I could remember his exact words when I spouted my concerns about what “I” wear, but he basically said that a person's sense of self is often in his or her own mind and can be fluid. The only person that determines what I can and can't wear, after all is said and done, is me. Just because I've never worn something doesn't mean I can't, and just because something “isn't me” doesn't mean it can't be.

Tomorrow I plan to get a new jacket. I still think the neck thing is stupid and probably won't get one, but that's my stubbornness surfacing. It's frustrating to me when I know advice is probably sound but I still can't accept it. If history is precedent, expect me to wear a neck thing in a few years when it's no longer in style.