[off trend]

Titanic came out when I was in 5th grade. All of the girls were obsessed with Leonardo DiCaprio. I mean obsessed. The boys in our class figured out that if they could get a hold of a photo of him, they could swap with one of the girls for food from their lunch box or pictures of an actress.

I didn't get it.

Not even a little bit.

It's not that I didn't like boys; I did. I had a crush on one (Jack) in my class. So it wasn't that.

I just could not fathom this need to obsess over some older man you'd never meet. Plus I just didn't think he was that cute.

Call it a sense of individualization. Call it being stubborn as a mule. Call it whatever you want, but that thing that made me wrinkle my nose at my classmates has found me again.

The vast majority of my daily blogroll is filled with fashion and personal style blogs. I love clothes. I love getting dressed. I love thinking up new ways to get dressed. Not the physical process of course, just the combining of different pieces.

There was a time where I jumped on every bandwagon. Actually that's not true. Mostly I just dreamed of jumping on every bandwagon because I never really had any money. But in my head I rocked every single trend I saw online, on tv and in magazines. All of 'em.

Then something changed. I don't know what triggered or when it happened. I just know that it happened. One day I was standing in my closet, desperately trying to find patterns that I could mix. If I couldn't afford trendy pieces then darn it all, I was going to make what I had more trendy.

The next day I was reading through my usual blogs and a thought popped into my head:

Pattern mixing is actually quite ugly & jarring.

Like I said, I don't know where it came from. I just know that when it came, it released a flood of similar nose-wrinkling reactions to current trends. Camoflauge? That's for hunters and women in too-small bikinis and daisy dukes at White Water with Tweety Bird tattoos on their ankles & cellulite everywhere. Pattern mixing hurts my eyes. And pray tell: what's so wrong with putting your arms in your jacket sleeves? Booties with a skirt or dress cut off legs and make people look stumpy, even when they're not. Full skirts tack on pounds that aren't there.

You get my drift.

Don't get me wrong, I don't feel disdain for all fashion. I love the cobalt blue that I'm seeing. And I've always adored leather. Same for animal prints. Sequins are always a good thing. I'm thrilled about the green pants I bought yesterday and I rocked a blue & green patterned ankle-length pair to church this morning. Statement jewelry? Yes please!

This is a very new thing for me, this sudden disdain. Just last week I was pinning outfits with some pretty serious pattern mixing going on.

It's not that I'm bitter about fashion. Not even a little bit. I still make time every day to read up on my favorite style blogs. It's just that I've got this voice in my head that says "nope" instead of saying "she did it, so I must do it too." It pops up in other areas too, from blogging to music choices. It knows what it likes and suddenly isn't afraid to share that opinion.

Is this....is this growing up?