Why I'm Doing A Nerdy Teacher's Closet

Why in the world would someone with anxiety subject themselves to taking a picture everyday, especially when they also have body image issues?

I've asked myself that frequently. This was especially a question I asked when I embarked on a 30-Days-Until-Star-Wars clothing challenge. I wore a different piece of Star Wars clothing everyday until Star Wars Episode VIII came out. Shockingly, I was able to watch my body change during that month, but I also started feeling good about certain aspects of the way that I looked. I took control of how I looked, but, sadly, it still doesn't handle the bigger issue of other people who have cameras and I find myself in those pictures.

My decision to do this, though, started over the summer when I was finally able to sort through and organize my entire t-shirt collection. I have a crazy amount of t-shirts that I've collected during my lifetime and now I could finally see them all! I had an idea to challenge myself to wear as many different shirts as possible throughout the school year. I wasn't going to photograph or blog anything, but I thought it would just be a fun challenge for myself.

Right before school started, though, I learned that one of my coworkers was diagnosed with Stage 3 Breast Cancer. With as much as Cancer has permeated my life and those I am close to, it hit me hard. She's the same age as me, super healthy, with two young girls... It's one of those ones that just knocks the wind out of you. She's on my sixth grade teacher team. We've "lived" across the hall from each other for seven years. It was just too real.

And that's where this blog series began. I'd sit in team meetings day after day, week after week, month after month listening to this idea about doing a teacher fashion blog. I remember at one point the group had joked about different teachers in our 6th grade team taking something focus on. Someone would focus on Target... I could do t-shirts (because HELLO!). I remember her talking about how to promote the blog and how to get it out there and all the work that goes into making it a success.

Now, I've been writing in the blogosphere for quite some time. It's a highly competitive world out there. I'm not an incredibly successful blogger, because I struggle with consistency due to my really fickle lifestyle. I figured, though, that this could be my opportunity to at least, in my own way, be some sort of personal tribute to something she'd always talked about. Yeah... I'm not a fashionista. Have you seen the pictures? I do have my own brand of fashion, sort of, and that's where I started this blog. She's on my mind everyday and everyday I take my picture, even on those days that I just don't want to make the effort to look anything other than the blah I feel inside, because I want to complete this challenge for her. It's like running a marathon... I can do this! I will do this!

Will there be other benefits to this endeavor? Sure! I'll chronicle my shirts and, hopefully, see more body changes, but it's my own weird way of doing whatever people do when they hear that level of news.

A team of us are walking for the cause and my coworker has shirts ready. Did I mention she loves designing shirts for our 6th grade team? Sponsor us if you can and thanks.

Donate to the cause by clicking the image.