Let’s Taco Bout It.

Are you dressed for a fiesta? the old woman asked me whilst I waited in line for the bathroom.

It was a Saturday night and my first thought wasn’t in regards to my colorful ensemble, but to the fact that I couldn’t remember the difference between a fiesta and a siesta.

Did she mean a nap? Or a party?

I would’ve dressed for the occasion, either way.

In response, I replied honestly:

Nope! I’m just out having tacos with my friends.

There we were, my friends and I  sitting at the hip bar at Joe’s Taco Lounge in Mill Valley.

Returning to this so called “lighthouse in the storm” that saved Marissa and I from our adventurous hike on Mount Tam a few weeks ago, we decided to return, having had such a wonderful time eating there before.

Located on the corner of Montford and Miller Avenue, Joe’s Taco Lounge is the warmest, most colorful Mexican joint with kitschy decor and some truly delicious tacos.

Simply put, it was the perfect occasion for me to dress up.

Pulling together inspiration from the colorful string lights outside, the Mexican influence, and lively furnishing, I walked out the door wearing heels, red salsa pants, an off the shoulder top, pom pom necklaces, and Frida Kahlo hair.

Apparently dressed for a fiesta!

Although given looks with raised eyebrows and questions that concerned the whereabouts of my outfit’s destination, it was all something I had heard before.

Why are you so dressed up? Are you going to a party?

All too familiar, and yet I continue to walk out the door in a ballgown, even if it’s going to the grocery store.

You see, I believe style is intinsically linked with the psyche. Mirrors reflect images and images reflect self-expression. What I put on my body everyday is my outer wrapping to who I am on the inside, how I feel, and the message I want to send to the world.

It’s my unspoken language and it’s how I visually present myself to the world, my personal and distinctive brand. It also happens to be my greatest sources of self-confidence.

Whenever I need a boost, I slip into something frilly, something incredibly extra, and doll myself up, making an uneventful and rather boring occasion into something fancy and splendid.

Don’t have an occasion? Make your own.

Dress has become incredibly lazy and used for the wrong reasons as of late. With the change in cultural lifestyle and the popularity of social media,  “style” has often been misrepresented online. See, instead of people celebrating who they are on the inside and then letting that shine on the outside, it has been portrayed by people who present themselves to be someone they’re not. They let that image define them from the outside, not the other way around. Fashion shouldn’t define us, it should amplify who we are to begin with.

But we won’t go down that rabbit hole today!

The message I want to taco bout with you is that life is too short to wear boring clothes. What you put on your body does have an influence on not only how people perceive you, but how you perceive yourself.

I forgot how good it felt to dress up for the simplest of occasions and I’m excited to recconect with my closet and communicate to the world who I am.

I eventually returned to my table where my friends and I proceeded to chow down on some tacos. Laughing and enjoying the ambiance around us, we had a marvelous evening and I got to shell-ebrate the opportunity that allowed me to dress up in the first place.

Fiesta or not.

Sparkle.

I was at work yesterday steaming this gorgeous vintage dress with pink aluminum beads and rhinestone crystals, and I asked my boss to tell me the story of the dress’s brand: Kramer.

Kramer, originally a jewelry company, dabbled into clothing when the creator decided that the style at the time wasn’t extravagant enough to match his jewelry.

Thus was born the gorgeous vintage dress with pink aluminum beads and rhinestone crystals. 

And I thought to myself, wow, that’s how I should be living my life right now.

Not necessarily designing clothing to highlight my extravagant jewelry (although that is definitely a priority when I dress), but creating an image that compliments the sparkle of our personality.

So if life isn’t reflected in the sparkle of my accessories? Redesign it.

And that’s what precisely what I’m going to start doing.

I first moved to California with the intention and plan to pursue my magazine.

The city hasn’t been as glamorous and glittery as I thought it would be and while I’ve learned a lot about myself and grown in ways I never imagined possible, I’m still missing the fundamental purpose as to why I came out here in the first place: my magazine.

I’ve got ideas, I’ve got passions, and yet I’m too busy making a living to express them in a way that’s meaningful.

I thought it was all part of the adult experience to move out of your hometown and see the world, and scramble to make ends meet for the sake of “learning how to be an adult.”

I felt pressured to seek an identity somewhere else and that in and of itself made me doubt who I am.

Scrambling after identities, we become alienated from what is true about ourselves and the world.

-Meg Jay, The Defining Decade

My self-esteem dropped, I became obsessed with figuring out “what was wrong with me”, and once I removed the pressure of “should” from my world (“setting up a false dichotomy between either meeting an ideal or being a failure, pitting us against our own self interest”), I realized that I was in the wrong place.

According to Meg Jay, life is built out of person, place, and thing. In other words, who we are with, where we live, and what we do for a living.

I’m seriously considering the idea of returning to a place I call home. A place that has always supported me and allowed me to express who I really am on the inside. A place that has the potential to help me create something that will allow my sparkle to shine, just like Kramer.

The glitter and glam lies in a place where I feel loved, appreciated, and accepted.

So it’s about time I make like Kramer and create an outfit that matches the sparkle of my accessories.

And that may mean relocating to the place that gave me the sparkle in the first place.