u/DefinitionWinter5261

Christmas dinner. Mom, hugging me, says "oh sweetie you look like the Talbots winter catalog." She meant it as a compliment. She actually loves Talbots. I had to wait until I was in the car to spiral.

I'm 34. I shop almost entirely at jcrew, brooks brothers, ralph lauren, occasional sezane. Everything is exactly what you'd expect. Cable knit, oxford, loafer, gold hoop. I love it. I am not trying to stop being preppy.

I just don't want to look 47 at 34. There's a version of preppy that reads young and a version that reads middle aged and I think I tipped into the second one without noticing. Or maybe I'm wrong about that...

Two years ago I was at my friend Em's 35th and I caught myself in the mirror behind the bar and I was a fucking caricature. Black eyeliner with a smudge. Studded boots. A mesh thing under a band tee that was sweat-stained at the back of the neck. Everyone else was in nice jeans and a sweater. I looked like the goth from the high school yearbook except 20 years later, in a wine bar, in 2024.

The thing is I LIKE alt. I have always liked alt. I'm not aging out of alt I'm just aging out of the costume version of alt. the difference between expression and re-enactment, you know what I mean.

I started scrolling through my camera roll the other day and there's a clear line. 2019, alt-but-good. 2022, alt-going-cosplay. 2024, full cosplay. and the worst part is in my head I'm still 26 and the looks are still working. They are not still working. they have not been working for a while.

What I want is a way to keep the things that are actually me about my style without the parts that are basically a uniform I wore in 2008 because I felt safe in it. Boots, yes. Eyeliner, yes. Black, yes. The mesh under tee, no. The studded everything, no. The all caps band print that is identifiable from 30 feet, NO.

I'm not interested in going soft. I don't want to be a girl in a beige cardigan. I want to be a 36 year old woman who you can still tell is alt at a glance but who isn't dressed like the manager of a Hot Topic in 2007.

Who has done this transition without losing the part of you that the alt thing was always about. What did you keep, what did you let go, what surprised you.

My youngest left for college three weeks ago and I thought I'd be fine. I wasn't the mom who cried at drop-off. I was excited for them and for me. But then I came home to a quiet house and opened my closet and it hit me.

Everything I own is mom clothes. Not in a bad way necessarily but in a "this was chosen by someone whose entire life revolved around being needed" way. Practical shoes because I was always on my feet. Stain-resistant fabrics because someone was always spilling something. Dark colors because I was always cleaning something up. Stretchy everything because comfort won every single time.

None of it is me. It's all the role. And the role just ended, or at least changed dramatically, and I'm standing here in my empty nest wearing the uniform of a job that doesn't need me full-time anymore.

I used to be someone before kids. I used to care about how I looked. I used to have opinions about clothes that went beyond "can I wash this easily." I want that person back but I've been gone so long I'm not sure I know who she is anymore.

Other empty nesters, how did you reconnect with yourself after the kids left? Specifically in terms of style and how you present yourself to the world?

After years of losing weight only to gain it all back plus more, I finally got prescribed Foundayo. 10 days in, down 3.5 lbs on 0.8mg, and honestly the number isn't even the thing I want to talk about

The food noise is just quieter, I didn't have a name for it before I read someone describe it in this community but that's exactly what it is, this constant background hum of thoughts about food that I've been managing or giving in to my entire adult life, it's not completely gone but it's turned down in a way no diet has ever come close to doing.

healthy food is genuinely sounding more appealing than the stuff I used to reach for automatically and I don't know how to explain that except to just say it's happening

one side effect - occasional mild nausea, nothing serious, mostly in the evenings. For the first time I feel like I have something working with me instead of against me.

46f. Eleven years. Papers signed six weeks ago.

I walked into a shop for the first time without a mental veto channel running. He had opinions about what he liked on me. Nothing dramatic not controlling in any way I could have named at the time. But I know now that I was filtering every choice through his preferences before I even tried anything on.

The first thing I picked up was a rust-coloured linen top. He hated that colour on me. Said it made me look sallow. I held it and felt this suspended moment  I don't have to check that anymore.

I bought it. Wore it out of the store. And stood in the car park and cried for about four minutes in a way I have not cried through this whole process. Not grief. More like meeting someone I'd forgotten.

I'm still figuring out who she is. But she apparently likes rust.

39f. Five years out of the workforce. Both kids in school  oldest in third grade, youngest starts full-time in two weeks.

For five years I've been in exactly two modes: kid-mode (practical, machine-washable, wipeable, comfortable  essentially a uniform for being available) and "going somewhere specific" mode (the small set of things I still own that feel like me).

There was no in-between because there was no in-between life.

Now there will be eight hours. On a Tuesday. For doing things. Things that are neither kid-adjacent nor a special occasion. Things like going to a coffee shop to work on something, or running my own errands at a pace that isn't dictated by a school run.

I keep reaching for the kid-mode clothes because they're there. But they don't feel right for the version of the day I'm about to have.

Been alt since I was 14. Goth, then more trad goth, then a long stretch of nu-goth-ish, the whole arc. I'm 38 now and tonight I had a small breakdown getting dressed for a friend's gallery opening (low stakes, art crowd, my people).

I pulled out what used to be my A-tier alt outfit. Mesh, the boots, the whole thing. Looked in the mirror and felt like I was in a costume of myself at 26. Took it all off. Tried what I think of as the normie version, dark jeans, a nicer top, ankle boots. Felt like I'd been dressed by a stock photo. Took THAT off too.

My partner (also alt, has been since forever) walked in during round two and said "babe you look great" and meant it both times, which somehow made it so much worse. Like sweetie that is not the data I needed.

The thing I keep circling is, at 25 I had this absolute certainty about who I was on the page. I knew what I read as. I had a uniform and the uniform was me. I don't have that anymore and I don't know when it left.

I think the aesthetic stopped being identity at some point and started being a costume I put on, and I didn't notice until tonight. Which is its own kind of grief honestly.

So genuine question for the people a few years ahead of me, how do you find the in-between when you've aged out of the subculture but won't go fully normie. Not asking for a brand list, asking for the move.

This is going to sound dramatic and I promise I'm not being dramatic, this actually happened.

Context: I've been home with the kids for almost 4 years. I have two, the older one is in pre-K mornings, the younger is 3 and home with me. My uniform for I think the entire duration of the youngest's life has been: leggings, an oversized tee, a zip up if it's cold, slip on sneakers. Occasionally a different oversized tee.

Yesterday I had a baby shower for my sister-in-law in the afternoon and my husband was watching the kids. I actually went to my closet and put on real pants. A real top. Some earrings I forgot I owned. I wasn't even dressed up, it was just clothes that I had picked instead of clothes that I had grabbed.

My 3 year old came into the bedroom while I was putting on my shoes and stopped in the doorway and said "who's THAT" and looked behind me like there was someone else there. I said baby it's me. It's mommy. He stared at me for like 4 seconds and then he laughed and ran to get the older one to come look. They came back together and the older one said "mommy you look like a LADY" like that was the most exotic possible thing I could be.

I went to the shower. It was fine. (it actually wasn't fine, it was strange, I kept catching my reflection in the windows and not knowing who that was either.) I came home and I changed back into the leggings and the tee before I even said hi to them, like I was scared if they saw the lady-version twice they'd remember her better than the leggings-version, which is the version that is actually mothering them.

I don't know what to do with this. They're not wrong that I look different in real clothes. They're not wrong that the leggings-version isn't really a version of me, it's a uniform. I just don't know how to dress like a person who also happens to be parenting toddlers without it feeling like a costume in either direction. and yeah.

Anyone been the other side of this? How did the come-back actually work? Not asking for outfit ideas, asking the bigger question I think.