It's Okay to Change

  

For as long as I can remember, most of my inspiration when it came to fashion and home design came from either the 1940s or the 1950s.  The clothes, the furniture, the films -- just everything about these two decades felt like home to me.  But lately, I am being pulled in a different direction and am finding that the vintage world has much more to offer than just that of the early mid century eras that I had restricted myself to for all these years.

The challenge I face now is allowing myself to embrace this new direction.  Self admittedly, I am very hard on myself and I have been struggling with convincing myself that it's okay to change what you like.  I think one of the downsides to living a vintage lifestyle is the strange connection we have to our stuff.  I often find myself feeling a certain responsibility to my vintage possessions, making it really hard for me to let things go. 

Now I know what you're thinking, "...but Emily, you sell vintage clothing.  How can you let go of those items and not others?" All I can say is somehow, it's different.  There is a mental divide between my shop items and my personal items -- I don't form attachments to the vintage clothing and accessories I offer for sale in my shop, most of which were bought with that purpose in mind.

I've taken this move (which I actually have a move-in date for now -- yay!) as an opportunity to severely downside and weed through my stuff, attempting to narrow it down to include only items I really truly love and actually use on a somewhat regular basis.  Because, this gal doesn't want to be featured on an episode of "Hoarders" anytime soon.  I know I will feel much better once I have a small load of stuff, but the road to get there hasn't come easy.

So this is a reminder to myself, but also for anyone else who is struggling with letting go: It's okay to change what you like.  It's okay to get rid of vintage items that no longer serve your aesthetic.  It's okay to change.