Okay, I lied

I really thought I was done dealing with the past work clothes (and by default, closing that career chapter). But apparently not. It was easy enough to get rid of the basic around-the-office slacks, tasteful yet bland sweaters and blazers, and the overly conservative costumes we all default to on our normal, routine, office days of endless internal meetings, PowerPoint deck creation and presentation, paper shuffling, email composition, and personal positioning with whomever is the power broker du jour who can make our work lives easier, or make them a living hell.  Off those clothes go, via Purple Heart, to someone else plodding away trying to make a living in big company corporate America. And the memories of that mind-numbing time along with it.

In my current job, I can wear more casual, more interesting clothes.  There are lots of negatives in my current job that I'll think about later, but the clothing thing is definitely a positive.

But towards the back of the closet are three business suits that I haven't worn in at least 10 years.  As I reached for them during my latest tidying up project, I froze.  I just couldn't take them off the rail. No, no, no. What was going on?

I've been thinking about those suits ever since. Yes, they're really cute, and suit me (pun intended) much better than the dull office attire ever did.  And they still fit nicely, so it's not a wishful thinking if-only-I-were-still-a-size-eight kind of thing.  And they're still stylish, because they're classic, sleek and sophisticated.  I was assuming it was an unwillingness to get rid of something expensive and in great condition, even though I don't need them now.  But I've done a lot of that sort of purging already so I don't think that's quite it.

When I mentioned the suits to my husband, he immediately remembered them too -- along with some great memories that they carried. During that brief (3 - 4 year) career phase when I wore them a lot, I loved my job. Loved it, loved it. We lived in Europe, I traveled the world, met interesting people, did valued work for people I enjoyed, and had a blast. I knew it couldn't last forever, and it didn't. Company management changed, and company priorities changed quickly to match. The "must have innovation imperative for the future" that was my area of expertise overnight became "an overhead burden on our core business proposition".  (Translation: kill anything the previous management championed, especially promising innovation, because new management won't get credit for it). And I, along with others like me, were shuffled into traditional corporate drone roles where we couldn't do damage with out-of-the-box thinking and would occupy safe little niches in the bureaucracy. But while it lasted, it had been the best part of my career. So far, at least. And I think that was simply because I was respected, listened to for my creative ideas, able to think freely, and in demand by people I admired and respected myself without a thought for corporate titles and org charts and other such management currency.

And I found out something deep inside that I didn't realize I knew.  Basically, I was really comfortable with who I was when I wore those suits and I'm not ready to give up that feeling -- or the suits. I want to feel that way again about my work, regardless of what I do or wear. So I'm hanging on to those suits for a while longer, to see what else they can teach me.