Facing Fear: day 2/30

Soooo, yesterday was Day 1 of the Facing Fear 30-day challenge. I decided to start off with something that wasn’t too threatening and decided this would be to wear something I wouldn’t normally wear to work.

I normally wear short skirts with bright prints. I buy them from Spiceworld (cough) in Hobart and I have heaps of them. Enough for one for every day of the week, summer and winter, and them some. Admittedly I normally team them with a dull black cardigan, but also often with bright matching leggings, to break up the black. I’m not afraid of colour.

So where to go with this one? Well I also own some funky lacy leggings in bright pink. I think I’ve only worn them once. It’s winter so wearing them by themselves isn’t an option (I don’t like the cold), but I can layer them over a plain colour and they look pretty sweet. By themselves though, not anything I’d feel too uncomfortable wearing. Team it with a very short velveteen (possibly, I am no fabric expert) skirt that I bought when I was a lot less baby-belly-endowed and presto! Something I feel very awkward going out in. I felt like it barely covered my bum. It wasn’t much longer than my short jacket. Someone would probably take a photo of me and post it in one of those horribly judge “30 things a woman over 30/35/40 should never wear” articles on the internet. (By the way, if you ever read one of those articles, you need to counterbalance it with The Truth, which can be found in this colourful post from Warning Curves Ahead.)

When I planned this activity, I expected it to be a 1 on the fear-ometer. A little uncomfortable but nothing to send me into a panic. (Anything that ranks 0 gets struck off the list. There has to be a little discomfort involved.) Once I saw how freaking short this skirt was, I started to get a bit anxious and wondered if this was a good idea. That bumped it up to 2. I don’t know how I expected people to react. I’ve never had anyone tell me to my face they don’t like what I’m wearing, so thinking about this logically, they weren’t going to start today just because I was wearing a skirt that was a bit shorter and a bit tighter than I usually wear.

And so it came to pass. I got a “look” from a passing motorist when Kramstable and I were walking to the bus, and the only other reaction was from someone at work, who said they liked my leggings.

In hindsight, a day that is below zero might not have been the best day to wear lacy leggings, but it was too late once I went out into the icy blast and I had to live with it.

Activity 1: Wear something you wouldn’t normally wear
Fear-ometer rating pre-challenge: 2/10
How I felt doing it: A bit self-conscious.
How I felt after doing it: Chillaxed. No one cared.
Would I do this again: Yes. Not on days where the temperature is less than zero.

Activity 2: Make an appointment to get my tax done

The scary part is probably going to be to actually attend this appointment, but I’ve never been to an accountant before so I was a bit nervous going in to make the appointment.

Fear-ometer rating pre-challenge: 1/10
How I felt doing it: A bit nervous about going into somewhere I’d never been before, but it’s not like anything was going to actually happen today, so I went through with it.
How I felt after doing it: Fine now. Finding all the paperwork might be a bit of a challenge.
Would I do this again: Yes. Ask me again after I’ve actually had the work done.