North German: Infantry Armor (c. 1550-60)

" … may I please remember who I've been and who I became …"

Starting to explore the positives associated with my new role as ArmCandy, I experienced a sensation from the past when dressing for an outing: the feeling of truly fine shirt fabric against my skin. I surrendered my wardrobe once it became moot. When I no longer had any reason to be SuitingUp in the morning, I reverted to more practical choices. My three-piece suits fell into disuse. Even my sports coats moldered in the furthest back corner of my closet. Most eventually gravitated toward a donation bin at a local Goodwill® shop and were soon forgotten. Not so easily discarded, though, was that sensation of SuitingUp. I missed that ritual, that reassuring sequence of unfolding the laundered shirt and putting on those pants, choosing a tie to match, and filling my pockets with wallet, comb, and handkerchief. I wouldn't leave until I'd passed muster with everything in place. I felt as though I was donning my armor in preparation for combat. I probably was.

In the evening, I'd reverse the sequence. I changed out of that uniform when I returned home, for wearing my armor around the house wouldn't do. I didn't need to, and it was too precious to expose it to the threats eating supper or doing the dishes might inflict. I was strict about that ritual, too, with everything correctly hung to minimize the possibility of wrinkles or carefully stowed to be delivered to the laundry the following day. I wore a different uniform at home. If I suited Up to go out, I suited down when I returned into jeans and a tee shirt, rarely a button-front shirt. I was also temperamentally different at work, more formal and reserved. I tried hard those first few years to keep from exposing who I really was when at work. The SuitingUp helped me keep that schizophrenia in check, continually reminding me who and where I was and, therefore, which of my selves I was at liberty to reveal. I maintained seamless transitions in no small part due to my SuitingUp.

It had been years since that joy I used to feel revisited me. It had become barely a memory by then, but just one of those distantly familiar sensations like a scent from childhood. It seemed familiar, but I couldn't quite place it until my recall finally kicked in a little later. Oh, that's how it feels to prepare myself for an ordeal. It's the sensation of stuffing who I am so that I might be suitable for public display. It's how I always tucked away my more vulnerable selves so they wouldn't be corrupted out there in the cruel world. Within my worsted uniform, I felt invulnerable to utterly ordinary threats. The depths of my paranoia rarely showed, or so I sincerely fancied, for who would ever suspect that anyone so well put out would have any weaknesses to exploit? I suited up because I figured nobody would be interested in scraping up my carcass off the playing field. My uniform was my defensive barrier; I firmly believed nobody could see through it.

I was wrong about the invisibility my uniform provided. It turned out that everyone could see through this Emporer's fine clothes, except the Emporer himself, who firmly believed he was invulnerable until he wasn't. He might have never been invulnerable but had only managed to convince himself first that he needed an invisibility cloak and later that it actually worked. His whole world might have balanced atop that remarkably useful fiction. So convincing was his performance that it fueled considerable success until it couldn't. Dressing for success might be a matter of SuitingUp to eventually make a fool of yourself, but the fiction works for a time, perhaps for just enough time for one to learn better. It was always impossible to know better before knowing worse, and it was equally implausible that one could learn without first experiencing potentially humiliating ignorance. My authenticity ultimately depended on accepting myself as good enough even when I wasn't SuitingUp. That was a painful lesson to face.

Now that I'm once again requested to SuitUp for a role, I feel challenged to retain my sense of self, and decades of sincere self-sacrifice have taught me how to pretend to be somebody else. I merely needed to dress above my station. As the old manual suggested, "Dress for the role you want to fulfill." I no longer aspire to receive a raise or wish for any advancement in responsibilities. I never really was executive material, for as near as I could tell, executives needed to be even better at inducing that trance SuitingUp always provided. Their gabardine seems just as invulnerable as armor. Their role demands perhaps the greatest delusions of them. As I slip into my role as ArmCandy, feeling that long-forgotten sensation of truly fine cotton on my skin, may I please remember who I've been and who I became lest I catch myself SuitingUp for some utterly imaginary combat again.

©2023 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #GoodNuff, #PureSchmaltz