Opinions - I has them.

During two years of counselling I've discovered many things about myself. Some things have been good and some have been... hmm... somewhat more challenging.  My most recent discovery has surprised me a little - I've discovered that I have opinions.  I know, that sounds nuts, doesn't it? Everyone has opinions. What I haven't known until recently, however,  are MY opinions.  This is not to say I've never had an opinion on anything - in fact I'm sure there are plenty of people who would call me very opinionated - but I've never been confident in my opinions and have always been easily swayed to other opinions, partly because I haven't trusted myself and partly from fear of rejection.  Those things are still there to a degree, but I'm slowly discovering what *I* like and what *I* think... and sometimes it surprises me.

So today I did some clothes shopping. It was a spur of the moment thing (most of the 'spurring' coming from one friend who recommended a fabulous shop and another friend who came with me and 'encouraged' me to buy the things I did) and I spent waaay too much money, but I don't care. I bought things I would never have bought a year ago or even six months ago because I didn't really know what I liked and I feared wearing anything that might draw attention to me. This, of course, led to some boring fashion choices.  Here are todays's choices... far less boring than previous choices and for the first time I really know that I like them and want to wear them:

This one is actually a birthday present from a friend (but I don't have to wait until my birthday, which is not until next month). The red is darker than in the photo.

This is from the same store, which has some truly fabulous stuff. (First photo is the front, second is the back.)

Also from the same store... it's actually striped, not grey, but it doesn't show up well in the picture. The second pic shows the detail.

Trust me when I say that this one looks a LOT better on!

On to another store... I saw these months ago but they were too expensive. Guess what? They were $40 cheaper today AND in my size!

And what are shoes without a handbag? (It's not leather and it's a darker red than the photo.)

I also bought this in black but it didn't photograph very well. It's a long, swingy coatish thing which I'll probably wear with jeans.

Another casual one...

See the lovely royal blue on this one? It's actually a dark purple but my silly camera didn't want to co-operate. The top itself is also black and not that weird, faded, greyish black that it appears here.

Last photo - this is also a darker black than in the photo.

In addition to all of this I bought a couple of plain tee shirts (one black, one white) and a couple of singlets to go under the more revealing items.

All up, a very nice day. Hooray for shopping and hooray for starting to find my voice. It's a great feeling.

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