So I’m going to London with my friend Beth (sans bébé!!!) NEXT WEEK. I’m pumped for oh so many reasons, including (but not even remotely limited to) the fact that we’d hatched this idea over a year ago and laughed it off until spontaneously making a decision to do it for our 30th birthdays, which are within a week of each other. It turns out that the days surrounding Black Friday are really, really awesome for buying plane tickets, especially if you’re buying them from already super cheap airlines like Wow or Norwegian. We actually first bought our tickets from Wow, which included a brief layover in Reykjavik, but canceled them within that beautiful 24 hour window of free cancellations thanks to Norwegian offering direct flights for even less. Magical!

I should perhaps be concerned about leaving my child at home for the first night without me while I’m literally an ocean away. I’d be lying if I said I was 100% not concerned about that, but I am also convinced that she will be fine.

I could also be concerned about actually planning the trip, but I’m not. I’ve done that part before and planning trips is fun for me. Also, I did a ton of that within one week of booking the tickets, because how else do you bide your time between {today} and your date of departure?

So what am I actually concerned about, you ask?

FASHION. WHAT AM I GOING TO WEAR. HELP.

I’ve spent the first 30 years of my life ranging from solidly uncool to barely, marginally just behind on-trend, possibly dipping into the could-pass-as-a-hobo realm around the early middle school era. As in I really thought that my carpenter jeans with a baggy t-shirt and scraggly hair were somehow acceptable. I like to think I have surpassed that stage, at least, but I also feel like I should have this figured out now that I’m perilously close to 30. Maybe being homeschooled in 4th and 5th grade led me to miss the years that all the other girls learned how to be cool through osmosis.

Skipping forward about 15 years, the last time I was in London for an “extended period of time” (read: 6 hours; business travel at its best), I was traveling solo and lugging a backpack full of work clothes and training materials. I took a lot of very very subpar selfies, had a slight cold, and wore clogs. While I still love clogs, they will not be making the voyage across the pond with me this time.

Since this London trip coincides with turning 30, I’ve decided that a) I must be fully cool by then and b) I have to prove it while traveling. Thus, I have been scouring Pinterest for days, with searches ranging from “London Winter Outfits” to “Casual Travel Fashion” to plain old “Women’s Winter Clothing.” It turns out that “London Winter Outfits” are not that much different from “Women’s Winter Clothing,” but if you want to wear comfy joggers with an expensive leather jacket (left open, of course, to show off your impeccably fitted-yet-flowy t-shirt) and brand new, skid-mark-free sneakers, you should totally use “Casual Travel Fashion” as your inspiration. If you’re feeling really ambitious and trendy, you can pair that outfit with stilettos. Also, please make sure that you wear your sunglasses both inside and outside the airport. If you wear regular glasses, too bad for you. You are less cool. (Nota bene, self.)

In an effort to make progress, I’ve started out by fully KonMari-ing my closet. Maybe I’ll make myself a capsule wardrobe, since that seems to be very of-the-times these days. I performed this act as a spur of the moment decision, and since ThredUp took a FULL MONTH to send me a clean out bag, I had the pile of clothes sitting on my floor for weeks. Marie Kondo would have definitely disapproved of that, but it was a means to an end. That pile has now moved to my laundry room.

My problem is that a now have a closet/dresser that remains full of basics, and only basics. I think my fashion sense, if you can call it that, is the very definition of the “basic” colloquialism, and I’m not enough of a fashion risk taker to step out of that rut. Like I said above, please send help. Send me all of your best fashion inspiration, but please ensure that it involves spending zero dollars, because I’ve already spent those dollars on plane tickets. GO!

Woodstock Writings