What We Wear When We’re Afraid to Be Seen

I use to feel like there was a certain level of “normal” you were supposed to maintain in public, and if you crossed it, got too loud, too silly, too animated, too much, someone would notice. And truth be told, being noticed felt dangerous. So I became the person who kept everyone in check.

Don’t.

Stop.

Not here.

People are watching.

It didn’t even matter who the people were; strangers, a couple walking past, someone in line behind us at the store. Strangers on the internet. I’d feel their eyes before I saw them. It felt, almost like my body had a built-in alarm system that went off anytime I was about to be fully myself?

And the worst part is... I thought I was doing the right thing. Being responsible. Being socially acceptable. Leaving no room for anyone to judge. I thought I was protecting us. My family, our child, our image. Proving we were doing it “right.” But I couldn’t have been further from the truth.

2025 taught me something simple:

People are going to think whatever they want anyway.

I used to believe if I behaved correctly enough, spoke softly enough, parented properly enough, posted all the "right" things... people would stop judging. Like there was an invisible scoreboard, and if I just racked up enough points, I’d be safe. I'd be liked. I'd be immune to peoples judgments. But this year, I realized something that’s both annoying and freeing:

The judgment doesn’t stop. So my shrinking can’t be the solution. If we keep living like the goal is to avoid being judged, we'll miss our own life.

which leads me to tell you, lately, I’ve been feeling time in a way I can’t explain without sounding dramatic. I’m a mom to an only child. He’s at that teetering age where he’s still a little boy, but the growing-up is starting to take up more space. He still wants us. Still thinks we’re fun. But I can feel the future creeping in. I know the day is coming when hanging out with mom and dad won’t be cool. When the silly things won’t land the same. When the moments I used to “tone down” will be the ones I’d give anything to relive.

And I think about that a lot. One day, none of us will be here. The house will be quieter. All we’ll have left are memories. I don’t want those memories to be of me pulling a handbrake on our happiness. I don’t want my son to remember a mom who kept checking the room before laughing. I don’t want to be remembered as the person who made him smaller just to keep other people comfortable.

Looking back at 2025...

The biggest shift wasn’t obvious until the end. I didn’t go through the year thinking I was becoming someone new. But now I see it: I started noticing the small moments where I was about to repeat a learned behavior of stealing my own joy and I’d pause; remember two powerful words:

Fuck it.

Not always gracefully. Most of the time, I still felt it in my chest first; that old instinct to quiet down, act “normal,” keep it neat and unremarkable. But more often than not, I chose something else. I chose the laugh that came out too loud. I chose the burst of silliness that used to embarrass me. I chose to stay in the moment instead of stepping outside of it to monitor how it looked. And the more I did that, the more I realized how many tiny memories I would've missed.

So if the choice is:

Be palatable. Or be present.

I’m choosing present.

I’m choosing to be the kind of parent who plays and the kind of person who lets joy be messy and obvious. The kind who stops apologizing for taking up space. The kind who’s goofy no matter who’s watching. I’m choosing to live in the moment with the people I’d die for.

I want to leave behind laughter. Not the memory of being perfectly behaved. Not a polished reputation. Not a quiet existence. Laughter. Joy. Love so infectious, it makes other people want to loosen up too.

So what does this have to do with what we wear?

Everything.

Getting dressed is a decision about visibility. Some outfits say, I’m here. Some say, Please don’t look too long. Here’s a hard truth:

“Playing it safe” doesn’t make you safe. Most of the time, it just makes you smaller.

Clothes are one of the quickest ways we manage other people’s opinions. We use them to blend in, to soften ourselves, to look appropriate, to look older, to look like we have it all together. And I'll tell ya what, sometimes that’s okay.

But other times? It’s just us editing ourselves before we’ve even left the house. And we have to change that. Life is too short.

So if you’re like me...

If you stop yourself mid-smile because you feel eyes on you, I get it. If you say “don’t” before you even realize it, I get it. But the world will always have an opinion. It’s not our job to avoid it. It’s our job to live a life that honors us. Who we are.

So here’s what we do:

We practice. Even when it’s imperfect.

We stop checking the room. We stop interrupting the moment. We choose to make memories.We choose to show up authentically. We choose to wear what we love.

And when we forget - because we will - we come back to two very important words:

just six short letters.

Fuck it.

In Style & creation,

Era