Ready to run

I really wasn’t sure where I was going or what I was doing when I started this blog. In many ways, I am still clueless but I feel like I am getting somewhere. It’s been nearly a year and I think I am beginning to understand where this is going.

Rewind all the way back to March. The twins were barely two months old. Elouise was just finished getting potty trained. We had decided to return home to Michigan but we were still in Colorado, effectively waiting to change everything. Life on pause stressed me to the max and I kind of snapped. I had to do something. I jumped without looking.

I had been playing with leggings in my aesthetic for almost two years at that point. I had been struggling with all the issues I have always had with myself, my image, my feelings, and my masculinity that I raised in a previous post.

What has happened has been pretty profound

At least to me :)

Since starting this blog I have had to open myself up and become comfortable exploring all this in a meaningful way. I had to have a lot more conversations with my wife. That alone has been amazing.

I have learned that much of what I have always been afraid of doesn’t really matter. The fear and loathing is all internal. The people who love you care about you. Have you ever heard the phrase “Those who don’t matter, mind. While those who matter, don’t mind.” It is true!

I had heard that phrase countless times but I had never been able to believe it. I do now.

It hasn’t all been rainbows and butterflies. The early conversations with my wife about what was going on in my head and where I was with my ideas about fashion and where I wanted to go with dressing myself and the aesthetic I wanted to create weren’t easy conversations. She had a lot of assumptions and worries and her own fears.

But as we’ve both come to realize. It is better to be in communication and building something than sitting in silence watching something erode. Marriage is not something you can do passively, but with all the stress and work of managing three kids under three, we had let a number of things go. This blog has rekindled real and legitimate conversation into our marriage again. That has taken wings. We are now talking about a lot more than me styling men’s leggings and wanting to look and feel more androgynous. We are talking about everything again.

I am learning a lot more about myself.

I have often joked that I still don’t really know what I am doing with this blog. I have written mainly about leggings, but I have also written about deeply personal things and silly little fluff articles. I actually think I should write more weird little articles like my post on Dutch Babies - still the best breakfast item ever!!!

Maybe what I am really doing on this blog is figuring out who I am. Should I be doing that on a blog?!? Fair question.

In all honesty, this blog has become cathartic and helpful at working through my past “trauma”. Blurg. I am still uncomfortable referring to my childhood as traumatic. On paper, it was pretty good. But in all seriousness, there has been a lot to unpack about how I want to be a better husband and father and how I want to present my image to the world and embrace both my masculinity and feminity traits and thereby become androgynous.

I didn’t even know what androgyne was before starting this blog. LOL. I thought it just meant a pretty man - nope - I was wrong. Turns out it means - well - me.

There is so much more for me to develop and discover and become.

And here I am.

Ready to run.

Terrified of where I am going.

Unclear about what the destination looks like.

It is a strange place to occupy. In many ways it is familiar. I was in a similar place when I decided to start wearing men’s leggings for fashion. In the beginning, I had zero concepts of how to style them and build an aesthetic, and wear men’s leggings well. In many ways, I still don’t.

With the journey now taking on a new form - one of self-discovery and self-acceptance. I have the same task ahead. I have to jump into the pool and start kicking. I have to leap.

I have this blog among many things to thank.