You’re in Love With the Old Me

I was at the height of my gyaru days in 2014; I finally discovered the style that suited me, agejo (which is one of the more sexier substyles) and I wore it nearly every day. I even rocked up to university in it, and got plenty of raised eyebrows from my colleagues and professors. It became my signature style and I wore it for a few years after that until I started working and had to tone it down. I then began to wear other styles like onee, rokku and himekaji that I felt more comfortable in, and rarely picked my MA*RS items out of my wardrobe.

But even now I’ve had messages from people saying that they loved my agejo style, and I cannot help but feel a hint of sadness… Because they’re in love with the older version of myself. What does that mean for my present self? Is the Lizzie right now not good enough?

(sidenote: if you’re a newbie here and not too sure about the substyles, here’s my blog post about them)

Sometimes I try to capture fragments of my past self by wearing my MA*RS items that I used to live in, but I can never quite match up to the memory that people compare me against. I feel like a fraud trying to compete with the image of that agejo gyaru who looked absolutely amazing in black and pink and over-the-top patterns. I tried, though; I tried so hard but I know that I will never be as good as I once was.

I watched the Lady Gaga documentary on Netflix a few months ago and I couldn’t help but draw similarities between us when it came to style and people’s expectations of them. She was known for her crazy one-off outfits, and I was known for my over-the-top agejo style. We’ve both grown since those days into something that we find more comfortable, but we are still known for our past selves. Others still miss the people we once were. But, granted, our older selves were quite inspiring because of how we ventured out into the world in our dramatic styles that didn’t quite suit “normal” society.

But nowadays I find myself more comfortable in numerous styles and no longer constrain myself to a particular one – it all depends on my mood. I happily dub myself a chameleon gyaru even though I know it’s hard to draw inspiration from that because I just change so much. I’ve become a jack of all trades, and master of none. But I’m happy.

I’m not writing this to make you feel bad. If you find my older self inspiring, then don’t let this post hold you back from drawing inspiration from it. Hell, I find my agejo days inspiring because, even though I cannot go back, I can’t help but miss those days. This is probably a mindset change that I adopt to stop myself from moping around.

Do you ever get this feeling?

Love,
Lizzie xx