Blooming Women
  • Bl(oom)ing Women Accessory Salon
  • Home + Table of Contents
  • Watch us grow!
  • About Blooming Women
  • About Being a Contributor
  • Contact
  • Happy Birthday, Blooming Women! One Year Today!
  • Blog—Maniacal Musings—Becky Lyn Rickman, Managing Editor
  • Blog—Jessica's Journey—Jessica VanVactor, Guest Contributor
  • Blog—My Armenia—Carol Rickman's Blog
  • Dealing with miscarriage
  • My Story
  • Circles
  • The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Being Single
  • 5 Stages of divorce recovery
  • The Circus is in Town
  • (You're covered with) The Fingerprints of God
  • Thunder Roared and Love Soared
  • A Period Piece
  • A sneak preview of the Gertie sequel!
  • Six Steps to Cultivate your Femininity in the Business World
  • Chore Zoning or Don't try this at home!
  • The 50 with Meredith Morse—Opera Singer
  • The 50 with Jessica VanVactor
  • Memorizing Joy
  • AT LAST! My interview with Shan White, Life Coach for women in transition
  • Questions and statements we don't care if we never, ever get asked or told again (am I right, girls?)
  • The Date
  • Moonshadow's Spirit
  • Broken Writer + Hypnotherapy = Amazing Trips
  • The "R" Word
  • The 50 with Carol Shepherd Rickman
  • Triumph During Transitions
  • A Kentucky Afternoon
  • Mothers
  • 10 things chemo taught me
  • What if . . .
  • Forgiveness—A poem
  • Mantegories (n. from the Latin; man+categories)
  • Insomnia 101
  • Blooming Bud Interview: Sierra
  • Masterful Mindsets
  • It's in the bag!
  • Important lessons for children: Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can
  • Nursery rhymes, and times, and slimes, and grimes, and crimes
  • Things I learned as a single mom
  • Sadie's Soapbox: Dating
  • The Dress
  • 8 Things That Have Surprised Me About Having a Large Family
  • The gift of longing
  • The Semicolon Project
  • Most embarrassing moments—culinary edition
  • MilitaReality—a brat's perspective
  • About those elusive wisps of thought
  • Being there
  • The Giving Mom
  • How I still haven't learned to keep my smart mouth shut!
  • If you give a mom a cookie . . .
  • Cacti and Geraniums
  • The Three Gardeners
  • Beauty is as beauty does
  • Words for Sabra
  • Arm scratching in Baltimore
  • Pornography didn't kill our love and friendship . . . I did . . . and how we got it back
  • Hardening off our little bloomers
  • The Wonderful, Magical Women of Blooming Television
  • Shake it like a Polaroid picture!
  • 25 Date Nights (that aren't dinner and a movie)
  • Hills Like White Elephants
  • Maryland Beaten Biscuits
  • The night we thought the house was exploding
  • A mysterious case of goosebumps or "What is that on the wall?"
  • Militareality—Real stories of military wives
  • Finding my metal in wood
  • Another blooming bud interview
  • Chariot of Fire
  • Secret gifts of love
  • The best prank I ever pulled was . . .
  • Connie
  • Dating and other hazards
  • Favorite childhood memories
  • When God speaks . . .
  • Zanie gets into another sticky situation
  • No-see-ums: A little useful information
  • I love my kids, but . . .
  • Meg's poem
  • Another blooming bud interview
  • Some of my favorite herbal recipes are . . .
  • I love my cat, but . . .
  • I love all creatures, but . . .
  • The thing all girls and women must see and know . . .
  • The Great Chicken Debacle
  • The Powerful Influence of Brothers
  • How I feel about blooming is . . .
  • Sometimes grandma is up—other times she is simply upside-down
  • Anyone out there as anxious as I am?
  • Some of my funniest childhood memories are . . .
  • You might be addicted to Harry Potter if . . .
  • This month's survey:
  • Another Blooming Bud interview
  • The most valuable life lesson I've learned is . . .
  • The greatest blessing to come out of the most painful thing I ever experienced was . . .
  • The most powerful influence on my life is . . .
  • The thing that could have broken our family, but didn't was . . .
  • The funniest thing that ever happened to me was . . .
  • The time my dad really surprised me was when . . .
  • NEW FEATURE: Interviews with Blooming Buds
  • ANOTHER NEW FEATURE: A survey
  • The most valuable life lesson I've ever learned is . . .
  • My most embarrassing moment was when . . .
  • What really puzzles me is . . .
  • One of the most fun days I ever had was . . .
  • The most scared I've ever been was when . . .
  • The people who have been the biggest influence on me are . . .
  • I like to relax by . . .
  • The best way to do . . .
  • My most embarrassing moment was when . . .
  • The most fun I ever had was when . . .
  • When I grow up, I want to be . . .
  • What really puzzles me is . . .
  • The most amazing bargain I ever found was . . .
  • Those annoying things kids do and what they mean
  • My shameless self-promotion
  • The thing about getting older is . . .

The dress

By Stephanie Brinker, Guest Contributor
A great allegory that made my heart melt! 
A few weeks ago, I received a gift—an exquisite dress. It was so incredibly beautiful, it made me weep. I didn’t order this dress. I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t pray for it. I didn’t even hope for it. As a matter of fact, I thought I would never have use for anything so stunning. I mean, at this point in my life, did I really need it?

I’ve had other dresses before. They were nice, but they got ruined by mistreatment or abuse. When I put them on, I felt kind of ambivalent about myself. They were just dresses. But this dress . . . oh, my goodness. When I dared to put this dress on, I felt like I had never felt before. I felt like I was beautiful and I never wanted to take it off. It felt so right and so lovely. For the first time, I felt like maybe I was worthy of such a costly dress. It fit me perfectly.

It did make me a little nervous to be wearing something so precious. I had a funny feeling in my stomach, like butterflies. When I looked at myself in the mirror, though, it just felt right.

I had tried on many dresses in my life. Too many to count. Some I didn’t even remember. A few I actually bought. But when I would look in the mirror, I didn’t much care for me in them. I saw a lot of flaws and each time I looked, I saw more. As I wore them, wrinkles and stains and tiny tears began to appear. I would try to fix them, but they only got worse. The tiny tears became holes so big, they exposed the ugly parts of me. I began to hate them and thought about throwing them away, but it was hard to do. I didn’t know what I would wear if I did.

The dress would always become unwearable and I would discard it and begin trying on new ones. It made me sad because even though I didn’t care for it, at least it was something to cover and make me unexposed.

When I would try on the new dresses, I would see flaws in them, but at least they were something. It was better than being without a dress. So, after a few tries, I would choose the least offensive dress and take it home. I would wear it, but it wouldn’t be long before I’d ask myself, ‘What was I thinking? Is this really better than wearing nothing?’ I mean, they kept me warm and covered, but sometimes they were far too expensive and they never seemed to last very long.

I had a couple that lasted, but only because I kept mending them and telling myself they were better than nothing. I told myself that it was better than walking around naked. But at night, when I would take the dress off and get into bed, I questioned that reasoning.

When the dress would begin to wear thin, I would ask myself if I was caring properly for it. I must be doing something wrong for it to get ruined. I rarely blamed the manufacturer. It was always my human frailty and inadequacy at caring for things that made them rip and stain.

A couple of the dresses I kept for far too long. I kept mending and each time I would put it on, I would cry a little. How on earth could I continue to wear this? But I never wanted to give up because the process of finding a new dress was not very pleasant.

Oh, sure, it was fun at first. When I saw dresses on the rack, they were so gorgeous. Somehow on me, though, they didn’t ever look the same.

It wasn’t too long before I figured that the problem must be me. I looked around at other women and their dresses were so pretty and fit them so well. I never saw stains or rips, just loveliness. Why couldn’t I pull off fashion the way they did?

Then it came to me one day. Try on some pants. Maybe I just wasn’t meant for dresses. I was a worker. I should look the part. So I put on some jeans and told myself that I liked them just fine. Who needs a dress anyway? It’s not like I was a princess or model or movie star. I could wear jeans and be comfortable and never worry about it again.
I was happy in those jeans. For the first time in my life, I didn’t need a dress. I accomplished so much more in the jeans, and did so much more comfortably. When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t mind not having a dress so much. No, this wasn’t bad at all. I was learning and growing and didn’t have to worry about a dress making me feel badly about myself. After all, they showed me every flaw. The jeans were so much more forgiving. 

Life was good. Really good. I was enjoying myself.


Then came this dress. The dress! As much as I loved life in jeans and never imagined myself wearing a dress again, it came to me. Out of the blue. Just appeared, uninvited, un-asked for. Should I keep it? 

The answer came in the mirror. Darn, I look good in this! And I feel good in this. I’m going to keep it. Should I write a thank you note to the manufacturer? Should I tell him how much I love this dress? It didn’t matter. He never had to know how grand he made me feel and how much I love myself in this dress. This time, when I put this dress on, I sometimes cry. But I cry because it was such a surprise so late in my life and was so unexpected. What a lovely gift. One I never dreamed of wearing at all, much less at this age. I guess it’s never too late to find the perfect dress.
Picture
I loved myself in this dress. Maybe it's never too late to find "the one".
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