What should I wear?

I’m going to a bar mitzvah. What should I wear?
I’m going to Santa Fe. What should I wear?
I’m going to a BBQ. What should I wear?
I’m going bar-hopping for Friday night happy hour. What should I wear?
I’m going dancing on a Saturday night. What should I wear?
My house is burning and I need to leave immediately. What should I wear?

It seems like the “What should I wear” game is one of the most overplayed, exhausting, and intoxicatingly addicting games my friends and I participate in. Every event seems to require at least one of us asking what we should wear. Or what are you wearing? Is jeans okay for a Friday night? Do we have to get dressed up for dinner in at your house? Is sweats acceptable on a Sunday afternoon? Do I have to come to your pool party wearing an actual swimsuit?

When I was a kid, I didn’t care what I wore. As long as it was comfortable. I probably took that mantra to an extreme, and actually got into trouble for wearing my pajamas to school. But it was so much easier then than it seems to be now. Even with a full closet of clothes, I’m in a constant struggle to find the right thing to wear.

Styles change. My size changes. My tastes change. Styles change again. My closet is an ever-evolving rotating door of clothes that comes and goes before I’ve had the chance to get my wear out of any particular item. The absolutely right-now perfect top doesn’t seem to hold up two months from now. The pink cargos went the way of pink flamingos in our front yard. The overalls I loved so much have been donated after eight years of hoping to make a comeback. It’s very frustrating how often fashion changes ever-so-slightly that last year’s version looks so much like this year’s, but not enough to pull it off. I’d rather just chuck it than worry about who’s noticed that I’m wearing “so last years”. And honestly, I care about this stuff as much as the average girl yet it still eats me up.

Plus, I never can seem to get ahead of the fashion and actually have the right thing to wear, so I’m constantly at the mall looking for perfection. Of course, I never find it when I’m looking for it. Only when I’m in a rush or shopping for a gift for someone else.

I try not to kill myself with keeping up with the styles and stick to my tried-and-true favorites. Most of my clothes are my staple favorites that you’ve probably seen me wear a thousand times. They’re like the PJs of my childhood. Three kinds of items are my standard-issue uniform. I can wear strikingly similar black or white t-shirts and never get tired of wearing them. I have twenty variations of the same t-shirt shirt: v-neck, deep v-neck, scoop neck, boat neck, three-quarter sleeve, long sleeve, gathered, cap sleeve…. I should buy an additional color or two when I refresh the uniforms but I wind up moving those to the back of the closet and focusing on my favorites.

I also have my standard issue sweats. They’re shoved in a drawer with eight other pairs, but I always seem to reach for the same gray pair over and over. Now they have a hole right below the knee, thanks to Casey. But instead of tossing them, I’ve decided to roll them up, hip-hop style.

Flip flops round out my third standard-issue uniform. Pink, white, black, red and every color in between. I have flips with rhinestones and flops with bows. I have crystal ones and stone ones and plain ones and denim ones and high heels and low heels and some I have multiple pairs of the same kind. I have a whole basket of flip flops and can wear a pair every day for over a month with out duplication.

What's your standard issue uniform?