I’m writing this in the 15 minutes or so that I have before Laura and Amy arrive to pick up me and my wheels for tonight’s society night out. It’s the Volunteering and Society awards, yaaaaay! The Riding society is up for best new society and best president (go Laura!).
No was with many of these types of occasions there is a theme to adhere to, this year was a mix between carnival and Gatsby. It meant I had to find something to where which didn’t make me feel hideously underdressed but still fancy enough while being comfortable in my wheelchair. I’ve had an outfit change already due to to outfit I wanted to wear not looking as good sitting down as standing up.
I don’t know what it is about dressing up to go out but it leaves me in a cold sweat. I’m not entirely comfortable in short dresses/ skirts for a night out and as fo heels? I love wearing them but I’m not great at walking in them. There was a time when I was younger that dressing up was my favourite thing ever, I loved discos and parties and would try ANYTHING in terms of fashion. Now I seem to have developed a uniform at uni of jeans and a nice jumper or t-shirt to uni, with my parka on top and either converses or Doc Martin’s on my feet. In the summer jeans get changed to shorts and tops to vest tops, with some floaty dresses thrown in one or twice a week.
I don’t know what it is there is just this horrible panicking fear when I dress up and wanting to measure up to other girls around me. Now I know 90% of girls do this, they look around the room and try and see if they look ‘good enough’. I try not to do this but I’m human like all of you. Once I’m there and relaxed I mostly calm down but the thought of dressing up and going to a big room full of people I don’t know, especially when I’m in a wheelchair, makes me go incredibly shy, which I NEVER AM!
It’s the huge internal monologue of Ok, who do I know here, do I know anyone here? No? Ok right talk to people, come on talk. Right ok now you’re talking to someone don’t say anything stupid. Did I hear someone laughing, shit is my dress up at the back? How do I subtly find out without making it look like I’ve got a major wedgie? Oh god what are they talking about now? Just smile and nod, smile and nod.
Usually I get away with it and people are nice and I catch up with what’s going on. So there you have it, I’m off out, nervous and anxious as hell for no apparent reason, which is odd because if I was doing a mental health speech I’d be fine, but this and feeling out of my depth, not so much. That’s me off so hopefully I’ll have a good night and something interesting to tweet about later!
Chloe Metzger 