Friday, March 17, 2017

The Art of Being Sexy

My husband is urging me to be a little sexier.

It's hard for me not to sigh when typing this. I know his words come from the intention of capitalizing on our fleeting youth and fantastic health. He loves me, but he loves my body a little less when it's covered in exactly what I'm wearing now--a too-big-for-me sweatshirt and comfortable Athleta warm-up pants. I want to be a good, fun partner and jump to his suggestions and encouragement.

But the truth is, I'm comfortable in this outfit. I live in this type of clothing because I want to be the type of mom who can jump onto the court and play basketball with one son, like I did last night. Or help my daughter brush and tack up her pony without the excuse of, "I don't want to get these shoes dirty." I feel like I'm at the age where I rarely want strangers' attention on bright lips, tight clothes, and heels that are going to hurt my feet anyway.

However, I want to trust him a little, tip-toe a few inches out of my comfort zone, and realize that there's a time to put my mom clothes away. It's good and healthy for me to simply be his partner, his date, his lover and nothing else. I admit that when I do pull clothes from this side of my closet, with silkier fabrics and less comfortable shoes, I also pull a bit of female power that is definitely there and fun to play with. And a little attention from others other than husband won't kill me.

So for our date night this Saturday night I went online and rented a dress from Rent the Runway. Have any of you done this? I urge you to stay far, far away from the site because there are millions of dresses  at affordable rental prices and you'll waste hours scrolling through the options. I say this with experience. I say this as someone who just wasted another five minutes of her life scrolling through Monique Lluli dresses while writing this blogpost. In addition to that guilty dress-shopping experience, I found a dress last week that is, without a doubt, sexy.

It is a simple, black sheath dress that covers everything from my neck to my knees...except for the parts that are sheer. There's a liner for my chest area, but the area above is mesh so that under the black material you can see skin. And then between the chest and my waist shows three inches more of skin underneath. Of course--I'm not a complete hussy--the area between my waist and upper thigh is covered, but then there is six more inches below that where the material shows skin underneath.

I think it's sexy but not overly so. Pushing the envelope while still being classy. Right?

However, I woke up this morning remembering a dream I had. Fact: we're going to a very nice restaurant tomorrow night and I'm planning on wearing this sexy, partly-sheer dress. Yet I dreamt we got to the restaurant and I was the only one wearing a cocktail dress and heels, and everyone else was wearing the normal Pacific Northwest attire--comfy jeans and brown clunkers for shoes, nondescript sweatshirts and surely a rain coat for the weather. All heads turned to me and I felt out of place and uncomfortable!

Is this the adult version of showing up at school without pants?!

Today I might give a quick call to the restaurant to inquire about their tasting menu...and their dress code.

1 comment:

Miss Murphy said...

Oh that dress does sound delightful! I bet your husband's eyes are going to fall out of his head!

I think you're finding the perfect balance of mom-clothes and oh-mama clothes. Balance. Always about balance.