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It hung in my closet for months. I bought it on sale last spring, when I was looking for easy throw-it-on-and-you’re-done dresses. I used to have many of these easy-breezy options, back when LuLaRoe was a thing. Now several sizes smaller, I’ve cleared all those out with little to replace them.

So I saw there was a sale at belk and went in. I couldn’t try it on (ahem, COVID), but it seemed worth a try. Once I got home, it fit well enough so I kept it. And there, on the hanger, it has stayed ever since.

Why not wear it? No matter the occasion, it’s always “too” something. Too colorful. Too long. Too flowy. Too dramatic. What can I say? This dress announces itself. It draws attention (to someone who doesn’t usually like attention.) The cut and the neckline looks pretty good on me, but it’s unconventional for my practical work environment. With COVID and everything else in my life, I don’t have reason to dress up often. It was just never the right fit.

Until last week, when a friend invited me to an event celebrating the life of her lively, colorful Mami. It was out in the woods, so wearing something long made sense. I was bringing colorful flowers at my friend’s request, so I packed it and went.

It’s the kind of dress that makes me stand a little straighter. Walk a little taller. I felt sort of regal in it. I loved wearing it to the service and dinner after.

Then, life threw us curveballs, as it has lately, and I ended up wearing the dress to all kinds of unexpected places. It traveled hundreds of miles. The dress took me out into the middle of a pasture in the late evening darkness. The dress stayed the night in a vintage camper. It helped care for horses in a barn. The dress grabbed coffee at the only open place in town. The dress rolled into Walmart early Sunday morning, messy hair and all. A voice said “what a gorgeous dress!” and I thought to myself, if only you knew what it had been through. It’s been pajamas, overalls, and everything else, it seems.

And then, it finally made its way back over the mountain pass and home again.

After all those months hanging, waiting for its moment, the dress made more than its mark on me. It will be making more appearances soon, now that I’ve seen its versatility and I’ve found the confidence to wear it. Do you have a dress that can take you all kinds of places?

Rules keep changing. Which is which? Does anyone really know what they are doing?

You sit next to people at a gathering or maybe even in class. People are spread out but space isn’t unlimited. Sorta close-ish for a little bit but not shoulder to shoulder.

The next day, you get called to the clinic. You’re in quarantine. 14 days. Go home right now and don’t come back until it’s done. Here’s some paperwork. You’ll be getting a phone call. Let us know if you get sick. Then a different clock resets.

The mad scramble for information. For testing. For a way out of isolation. Someone else got to go back to school the next day. Why? Wondering. Waiting. Turns out she was sick a few months ago so she is immune. No one asked for proof. I don’t even know what to say.

The clock ticks. Events are missed. You see friends in the free world having fun and going about their lives, maybe with a mask on, maybe not. What gives?

I do believe in science. I do believe this thing is real and really, really bad for some people.

I know that science changes its mind as we learn more about pretty much anything. Before the Spanish Flu, people would regularly drink out of the same cup at a gathering. Individual cups weren’t a thing. And for how many years did humans think the world was flat? Decades? Centuries? Millenia? So our evolving knowledge over the course of 10 months really isn’t so bad. Or surprising.

But when it is in your face, limiting your movement, based on rules that seem sort of arbitrary, it’s frustrating. My jaw dropped when I heard that my daughter’s school has a measuring stick, taped together so it is exactly 6 feet. When a student comes down with the sickness, they go to each of their classes and set that measuring stick on the student’s desk, then spin it around with the stick as a radius. Where’s the seating chart? Any student sitting within that circle is quarantined.

Does an extra inch really mean someone is safe? If your quarantine ends Monday at 5:00 pm, are you really all that much safer than you were at 4:00 pm? And what if we roll the clocks back an hour during quarantine?

It is hard to wait out the days. Watch for symptoms and wonder. Try to explain it to my daughter. Shrug my shoulders at what I do not understand.

I have to tell myself, as I often do, pandemic or not, that people are just doing the best they can given what they know and what they can handle. Sometimes that best can be confusing and crappy. Honestly, there are moments when my personal best is a hot mess too.

Pandemic life wears me out sometimes. Work is a grind. Masks are a drag. Rules are everywhere. Judgment, too. Weariness creeps in.

Dollars are precious. My family owns a restaurant. What was once a reliable source of income has been turned upside down. Regular meals out, drive through coffees, even gym memberships have been trimmed back and revisited as time goes on. We are doing ok, but I have become more conscious of where all the family money goes. Pennies add up and really shouldn’t be just flushed away.

Even with watching spending closely, I made a conscious decision to invest in a flower subscription for myself this spring. Fifteen bucks a week and I got a fresh bundle from a creative home-based flower farmer.

My house is abundant with zinnias much of the summer and I LOVE them. So why go elsewhere, you ask? Flowers from the Seed to Petal Flower Farm are so different than my own. She has unusual varieties and puts them together beautifully. I loved picking them up and seeing them on my table all week. A smile and a wink just for me. We all need those little boosts.

The flower farmer is also a woman-owned small business growing bit by bit. She shares her ups and downs and knowledge online. Fifteen bucks a week is a small price to pay for all of that. Supporting fellow women, fellow farmers, fellow creatives doing amazing work feels like the right way to direct my dollars in these days.

As our own lives and personal economies continue to soldier through this time, what are you doing to treat yourself each week or even each day? Are you intentional about it? If not, how can you decide to brighten your days? What can you do to treat yourself, inspire yourself, invest in your happiness?