I wore the same dress for 5 days straight

Let me preface this next confession with a very true statement: I LOVE AMERICA.  I do! I never want to live abroad, let alone travel.  My brother is a proud member of the military.  My parents’ whole relationship seems to revolve around football, and yadda yadda ya, this country rocks. However, this year, I was NOT looking forward to the 4th of July.  Mostly, we had too many Moxie Project events scheduled, and I was super stressed out about how to celebrate.  As soon as I found out about our Moxie schedule and the full 1pm- 10pm day we had scheduled on the 5th and our dinner on the 6th, I knew that this July 4th weekend would take some very detailed plans to pull off.

The weekend prior I finalized the plan.  After hearing word that one of my MOST FAVORITE teammates would be at her house in Boston for a couple days, I had a guiding light and worked from there.  Ready to hear it? You might want to grab a pen and some paper to map it out… ok, I’ll take care of all you visual learners:

Wednesday, July 3- Work then head right to Grand Central and go home! (CT)

Thursday, July 4- Wake up early and drive to Boston!

IMG_5015This is Claire who is Canadian and a great co-pilot

Friday, July 5-Leave Boston at 7am, drive to the commuter Metro North train, leave car there, take train to NYC, and be in Ada’s apartment by 1pm for discussion, attend the Museum of Sex, watch off-Broadway play “The Accidental Pervert,” spend night hanging out with Moxies

Saturday, July 6- FIND DEBIT CARD (not in original schedule of events), workout, eat delicious meal provided by Melanie and Kristie, take off right after Moxie discussion for Grand Central, take Metro North back to the train station where I left my car on Friday (say prayer on train that car has not disappeared from lot), drive home

Sunday, July 7- FREEDOM, NO TRAVEL, SPEND TIME WITH CAT, GET NAILS DONE

Monday, July 8- Have mom drive me to Metro North train on her way to work, take train to Grand Central, take subway to work…. End.

It was a great July 4th weekend.  I was so grateful that Claire tagged along from Wednesday until Friday too!  But my favorite part of all this back and forth traveling was my outfit.  I wore the same dress from Wednesday AM until Sunday PM, impressive right? Ok, well I did change for a few hours into a clean outfit on Friday PM, but then I lost my debit card, so it was clearly bad luck to set the dress aside.

There is something about consistency when you are moving from place to place.  Knowing all I had to do was throw on that dress was reassurance that the world wasn’t going to fall out from under my feet.  I get really anxious when traveling (yes, I’m considering this gallivanting around the Northeast “traveling.” Don’t judge, I’m not exactly “worldly”).  So this is my advice to you when you are anxious about a certain block of time that is a little daunting, whether it be for fear of not making it fun filled enough or even if you are stressing about matters much more important:  wear one thing consistently!

I switched high schools when I went into 11th grade and I swear, I wore the same leather bracelet like it was MY JOB.  Made me feel good to glance down and see something that I had also seen at home, at my previous high school, and then in a new, un-mastered place.   That bracelet was the tangible representation of who I was even if my location was changing.  Perhaps I didn’t need such a deep symbolic object when taking a couple days out of this New York City intern life, but every time I threw that baggy, blue dress over my head for day 2, 3, 4 or 5… I was like “Grace, you’re alive, you’re in the greatest country in the world, and you are SO LUCKY to be doing whatever the hell it is you are about to do today.”

dress

this is me and my dress with things going wrong (getting back $15 worth of $1 coins was not ideal when living off a Duke Engage stipend)

2 thoughts on “I wore the same dress for 5 days straight

  1. I LOVE THIS (and that dress) SO MUCH. SO glad you wrote it all out…it is exhausting/seems completely implausible just looking at it. You also helped a foreigner tour two entirely new states, while navigating the I-95 and the Mass Pike..not a small feat. I am so thankful to have been a part of these plans and reaffirm my deep deep love for amurrica.

  2. I love this too . . .and I wish I could say I no longer stress when faced with a schedule like this but alas, no. And it is perfect timing too because I am facing two weeks of way too much to do – it all starts tomorrow and ends on the 23rd. I’ve spent the past four days wondering how I will get it all done and then I read your post and I stopped trying to figure it out and realized it will all just happen and I’ll get there. Now if only I had one magic dress, or had known that that’s all it would take!

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