4 wings, 6 legs

I have this feeling recently that I am about to "graduate" from being a lolita. For a couple years now (mostly in the fall and winter most likely) I've found myself more interested in longer silhouettes. I find I check the Jane Marple tag on second hand sites, and most times I stop there. After taking pictures of my outfits for 3 months, I realized I really prefer simpler styles and no-fuss pieces. I did wear lolita 2-3 times a month, but I haven't word a full coordinate since then. I still really love lolita and looking at it and making coordinates but it feels like I would rather make lolita than wear lolita.

One of my main issues is growing out of my clothing. I feel as if I'm being forced to graduate whether I want to or not. There's 52 pictures in my "sold" folder on my laptop, and those are just the ones I've documented. Some (high waist 2004 bouquet op in brown and blue .. come back to my my pretties) are complete regrets that I could fit into fine now. Others (2002 ladder bouquet... 2001 raschel lace skirt.....) are never going to fit me again and I realized that and sold them off before it got sent off to die in my "to alter" sewing pile. When I see those pieces again, it feels a little like it is still "my" piece. I saw a acquaintance wearing the aforementioned ladder bouquet and I was excited (the feeling of seeing an old friend for the first time in ages), but then the regret/disappointment set in (remembering that you can never be friends again in the way you were before).

The second issue I have is confidence. Unless I'm going to a meet, I don't have the confidence to wear a whole coordinate. Even though my boyfriend absolutely loves lolita, I don't think I've ever worn a coordinate on a date or outing with him. :(

I surveyed my wardrobe and of all my pieces, only 10 I've worn casually (that is, not to a lolita meet and I actually left the house). 9 if you don't count shoes, 8 if you don't count jackets. So, I've devised a challenge for myself. I've separated out my unworn pieces, and on the 2 days of the week I don't have work, I will try and style one of those pieces. I'll keep doing this until the end of the year. I don't know what I'm going to do with my pieces after that, but I'm just trying to build more confidence in my clothing. Whenever I see someone else dressed to the nines, and I look boring I always wish I had dressed more interesting as well.

I don't think I'm one of those people that will be buried in BTSSB. I know I'll graduate one day, even though it will always have a place in my heart...

Well... here it is!

Day 9 – 10 things you will never do in lolita.
work, garden, travel, cut out fabric, play with fire, etc... pretty much anything dirty, dangerous or uncomfortable. Pretty much the only thing I do in lolita is chill out in my room reading, playing on my computer and sometimes sewing or knitting. Occasionally walking around town to get tea or to the library. I want to do more, maybe make an antique shop day or something.

Day 10 – What’s in your bag?
My wallet, keys, chapstick, phone, birth control, heart meds, hanky, mini lint roller and lotion. Looking in there right now there's two pairs of earrings too haha. If I'm going somewhere far or for long and I have a bigger bag, then a book, some yarn and my DSI. My daily bag is just a plain black shoulder bag. I recently got a la lucie bag and it is so much huger than i thought it would be. I should do a post on how much that thing can fit.

Day 11 – One day in your lolita life in pictures.
I planned to wear lolita today and just putz around, but today was a moderately bad fatigue/brain fog day so i just chilled in bed in comfy clothes.

In the morning I got some mail I wasn't expecting so soon, so i opened that up and tried it on. Everything fits! This MM bustier had been sitting on mercari for months now and i thought it was a little expensive, but I went for it anyways. The boz skirt i saw and LOVED it but it was over the limit i let myself spend on singular pieces. Then it got marked down on sale! I was waiting and looking for more things to get in this order, but I wasn't really feeling anything. I wouldn't say I've been uninterested in lolita exactly, but i don't have that same impulsivity and enthusiasm that i used to. That, or I'm just more realistic about what I'll actually wear.



I made myself a small salad and laid in bed for quite a while. took some pain pills and rolled around a little collecting dust and cobwebs. Got enough energy to put some laundry away and my new clothes. My wardrobe corner is looking so cute lately, but very heavily lolita/ega/j fashion even though i don't wear any of this often at all. The other day boyfriend came over and i told him to choose an outfit for me and i pointed at 3/4ths of my clothing rack and said you can choose anything except all that stuff. I haven't told him about my lolita hobby other than sending him some magazine pages and some really old coords of mine/cropped shots of coords, talking about buying stuff off japanese sites. I imagine it just looks like fancy/going out clothes to him so maybe he wasn't weirded out. I did send him a lolibrary link once though for a dress i was gonna buy and later he was like... did you see it said LOLITA? hahaha I'd feel weird about "coming out" as "a lolita", so I think my method is fine for now.


(everything to the left of the blue is my daily clothes, to the right is my egl wardrobe)

I got back into bed, rolled around some more then got out to dilly dally some on my laptop. I was watching stargate, but that didn't look so cute so i pulled up the hospitality doll calendar. I'm thinking of redrawing it!



I tried to counteract the brain fog by going outside for a bit. The grapes really fuck with the lilacs, so I'm gonna need to cut them down to 2-3 single vines again over winter like i did a couple years ago.




It's 10 pm now and ive just been fiddling around on my computer, updating my wardrobe spreadsheet and writing this out. went through the randomly named text documents in my lolita folder on my laptop and i found a random 10 question prompt thing so i might do that next! I know I want to refilm the old school lolita tag, because i had no energy to edit it and that was months ago and i've sold some of the things i had in it even though i say in the video i never want to get rid of them soooo... it's irrelevant now.



I feel like i was very chatty today, probably because i barely left my room. I'm going to go have a very lolita shower, and go to sleep in my lolita bed.

Day 2 – 10 5 things you love in lolita.

1. Creativity
Like I said in day 1, lolita pushes me creatively. I've even learned the basics of coding just to make my own website because I loved seeing other lolitas websites! I get so inspired by other peoples coords, their art, sewing projects, websites... I love that!
2. Hunting
I recently got this skirt for 21 USD and this cutsew for under 10 USD. The fruits of my labour. The labour being the hunt of lolita second hand sales. It's not just the cheap items though, I've been incredibly lucky with wishlist items like this iconic victorian maiden op, or like... hospitality doll. Though, most of my luck was just being vigilant with buy-sell-trade threads or certain brand tags on mercari. Part of it is also being  20 pages deep on the blouses section of closet child and finding something really strange, fascinating and unique that I'll treasure for a long time.
3. The silhouette
This is bold for someone who almost never wears a petticoat but I like the structure of a lolita coordinate. Headdress, op or jsk+blouse or blouse+skirt, legwear and shoes. It makes it so easy to put outfits together and yet leaves so much for experimentation and individuality.
4. Other lolitas :)
Other lolitas, to me, really make it worth it. Of course I love the clothes but the conversations, advice, help, inspiration and friendship that came from other lolitas has kept me going. I really treasure the frilly solidarity.
5. It's special
It's not something for everyday for plenty of people (including me). It's a part of my life I keep mostly separate, and I like that. No one needs to know of my princess secret. It's only for me and for the others who love it too.

I feel like I've been doing nothing but languish in my room all day, completely wasting away. I have to ask myself these two questions: What am I doing? What do I want to be doing? So here are the answers I've been able to come up with.

What have I even been doing?
Reading, mostly. Watching movies. Playing games I guess, but nothing interesting. Picross3D for the ds (I was able to 100% it) and ffxiv. I've also been playing Pathologic and The World Ends With You but I'm not very far into those games yet. Listening to music? I've been getting into new bands, new music lately.. trying to depart from the same three 60s country singers and the same three goth albums I listen to on repeat. Pale Face and Violator are 2 albums that have been on repeat for me. I guess I can say I've been exercising too... I started doing pilates with a friend of mine but I started skipping days like mad until I switched to yoga (which I have actually been doing every day, thank you very much).
As for the reading... I just finished A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid, and I'm in the middle of ORV and Entangled Life. If you've ever been a tourist, especially in the caribbean or to some poor country that relies on tourism, I think you should read A Small Place. Other books I recently finished/have been reading I don't like very much so I won't mention them here. I also read the entirety of Parasyte, Chainsaw Man and Mob Psycho 100 all within a week or something. All three are pretty good but Mob Psycho made me cry multiple times even though it was my second time re-reading it and watching the anime so it gets first place. And because I've been watching so many movies I feel like I'm able to recommend some. Non-horror: Wedding Banquet, Red Shoes and the 1947 Nightmare Alley (this is one of my favourite movies of all time). Horror: May (2001), Shutter (2004), Peeping Tom (1960) and the first reanimator movie.

What do I want to be doing then?
I haven't been sewing very much at all, though I really want/need to. I bought a VM skirt with a broken zipper for cheap (and some BUSTED lace), but it's just been languishing on my sewing table for a month or two now. Though, I did find a floor length velvet dress I'm in the middle of altering to fit me. I haven't crocheted or knitted at all either, aside from a beanie with horns I made as a gift for my brother. I'm working on updating my site, but the only coding I've done for a while is editing tumblr themes. Which, speaking of... I made egl sideblog. I don't think I'll start posting coords or anything on there though, most likely just going to reblog things. I really want to draw too, but it's been a while and I've forgotten so much. I can only bring myself to do studies for maybe 10-20 minutes every other day. This has been helping though! And I know in the long run it will be very worth it, it's just that right now it's quite frustrating.

Aside from all of this my health has been declining, and declining rapidly. Lifting things, sitting upright for longish periods of time and breathing deeply have all been especially difficult. Which is... pretty troubling, intensely depressing, and severely limiting. I feel like there's so much less of me lately. Not lately. For a while. Mentally, physically, socially... there's nearly nothing of me. Here, I originally wrote like 200 more words of depressing nonsensical shit but I'm just gonna take that to my therapist instead and end it here.

If you read or skimmed through this, thank you! I've been noticed and seen. In your heart and in mine, an exchange has been had even if nothing is said. I hope you find/have someone cool IRL you can talk to and be honest with. OK. BYE!