A Journey To Happiness

Creating happiness, the joy from the soul that people sing and wax poetic about, poignant and precious to one’s life is also the hardest kind of happiness to fashion. Have you ever felt sadness that threatened to swallow you whole? Has it hurt so much that words get trapped in your throat and you stopped making sounds? When all you can feel is a crushing weight that seems like it will never stop? That’s what it feels like for me on my bad days. On those days I have a hard time even getting out of bed. I was bullied a lot while I was growing up, and that bullying matured into mental abuse. I suffered from emotional manipulation, gaslighting, and all kinds of tactics that made me feel worthless and like I didn’t matter. I became a people pleaser and allowed people to use me as their personal emotional punching bag. I didn’t really know what it felt like to have people love me simply for existing. I didn’t know what it felt like to be seen or validated, and when I hurt or couldn’t take any more abuse no one really cared much. As a result I felt invisible too.

As a kid, one of the few ways I was able to cope with the bullying was by fully immersing my interests into anime. Sailor Moon was my gateway drug. I became completely obsessed with it. I was attracted to the fun colors and the story about a magical princess who could fight for herself and wear pretty outfits. She had supportive and kind friends who all had unique and powerful stories of their own too. All the characters were celebrated for their unique talents and for simply being themselves. I loved everything about it. When I got older, that obsession with Sailor Moon had a transformation too. I discovered cosplay and the refuge I found in anime transformed into a celebration in cosplay

Cosplay began as simply a desire to be my favorite character for a day. To dress up in an outfit and to have someone actually recognize who I was attempting to be and to be just as excited as I was went well beyond the kind of fun I could get out of something like Halloween. Cosplay was different, more specific, and it spoke to me in a very personal and intimate way. It made me feel like I was being seen by people who understood me. Naturally, I became completely enamored with it and continued learning more and more ways to craft costumes. Cosplay became something I could feel a sense of pride about. I got to learn how to use a sewing machine and became familiar with so many interesting and new fabrics to play with. I found out very quickly that regular scissors cannot be used for cutting fabric and that my left-handed self definitely can’t operate right-handed fabric shears to save my life. The first time I used a left-handed pair of fabric shears was nearly intoxicating. The grip of the shears was no longer digging into my knuckle, and the fabric didn’t get caught folding up between the blades anymore. My left-handed shears became one of my most important sewing tools aside from my sewing machine. My sewing machine became like a home base to me. When things in my life felt out of control I could sit down at my sewing machine and craft something and I felt like I was put back together again too. I even changed my career, went back to school to earn another degree in theater for costume making, and entered the entertainment industry as a costume seamstress.

One of the little-known tragedies about trauma is that it compounds, especially when the abuse doesn’t actually stop. I thought I was doing really well for myself. I had accomplished so much to be proud of; I quit an old career, worked my way through school, and got a 2nd bachelor’s degree in theater for costumes. I was just getting started in accepting contracts and working my way into a new industry, yet I was still surrounded by people who would bring me down. They made me feel like my accomplishments were nothing. My new degree felt like a joke because I felt like I was the only one who saw how hard it had been to accomplish, no one seemed to care. I was stepping on eggshells around my partner because he unpredictably got upset over anything and everything, I never knew what I was going to do wrong next. And lastly, my best friend kept sidelining me as if our friendship didn’t matter at all. I felt isolated and even worse, I felt worthless and alone. It felt like everything was meaningless and that no matter what I did I was never going to be enough. My sewing machine didn’t call out to me anymore because it had become too associated with the stress of work and I stopped reaching for my shears because I could no longer find the desire to make anything new for myself. I couldn’t find comfort in anything or anyone and I felt completely and totally isolated.

So what happened? What would you do? Would you stay and try to repair an abusive relationship? Would you have the courage to say “no more” when you saw that the life you were living was only becoming more and more miserable? Would you be able to make the hardest decision of your life to abandon what so clearly wasn’t working for the sake of your own health and happiness? I did. I made that choice. I decided to leave. I chose to leave the situation that was making me miserable to pursue a new life of healing and rekindle my love of sewing.

I was terrified about my decision. I had no fallbacks, no plan B, and no support. I felt sick to my stomach with grief over so many things. I grieved the loss of what I wanted my life to be, and the loss of all the things I had hoped for with my partner and the life I wanted to build. I had dreams of living in a house and building a family and connecting with my community, but I had to let all of that go because it was never going to happen if I stayed. If I stayed my depression would have only grown unchecked by anyone and led me to do the unthinkable. Leaving was my only choice if I wanted to remain alive. I had no one to turn to for help with processing everything I was feeling, all of the guilt, the shame, the extreme sadness, and the broken dreams. I had to pack up my sewing machine, not knowing when I would be able to sew for myself again, to check in with myself. My lefty shears were in need of sharpening, having seen far too many projects and occasionally being “borrowed” without permission to cut something not fabric. (I see you sewists out there being equally upset by that.) Everything was unraveling like a frayed garment, and I did not have access to my safe place anymore. My trusted shears were packed and not available to me to trim away the excess fray cluttering up my thoughts. I was cut off from my grounding ritual. I found my rock bottom.

When I left, I didn’t just leave to go to another neighborhood. I went to another city on the opposite side of the country. I filled my car up with all that it could carry; my sewing machine packed in my rolling carry-on suitcase, my shears nestled with my thread kit, and the rest going into storage, and I drove. I do believe in a way that this drive helped me in ways that I may not understand even to this day. But I do believe that the catharsis and freedom it gave me saved my life.

I saw many wonderful things and watching the terrain of the United States change so dramatically over the course of a week was awe inspiring. I saw the great plains for the first time and learned that tumbleweeds were actually real, and that Looney Toons didn’t just make it up. I drove through mountains and down steeper slopes than I ever had before and took breaks at the bottom just to enjoy the beauty and the clear air. And I also saw canyons that made me think I was on Mars. Through a week of driving I was also introduced to “A Court of Thorns and Roses” series by Sarah J Maas. It came into my life at exactly the right time. Sarah writes a lot on the themes of emotional abuse, abusive relationships, life upheavals, homelessness, and recovery in her story. I found myself relating to the story’s protagonist on an extremely intimate level. I felt SEEN! I felt HEARD! And deep inside me, I felt a kernel of hope. This intense connection has given me a mighty desire to show people this incredible story and the wonderful protagonist named Feyre.

Its been 3 years since that drive across the country. I did end up spending a long time living out of my suitcase (close to a year) but I was able to make some really fantastic new friends. They are empathetic and kind and incredibly loving. Through their help I found a place to live with a roommate and I even met my new partner through them. He reminds me of Feyre’s mate, Rhysand in so many ways, and I see so many connections once again between us and Feyre and Rhysand’s healthy relationship. He has supported me through so much growth and healing. Before, even after I had unpacked my sewing machine and tools, I would look at my sewing machine and feel drained and depressed. It wasn’t inviting me to check in or come home anymore. Everything in me that was creative was gone, and the pandemic made everything feel even worse. But recently, as I’ve been able to get back on my feet more and more, with a new job, and attending therapy, my creativity have been sparking up again. My machine is asking me to check in again and my sewing shears beckon to me. I want to make cosplay again! And not just any costume, I want to make Feyre. I want to make the character who saved my life into a real living entity with all of the beauty and awe that she deserves. I decided that I did not want to spare any expense or cheat in any way with this costume. In many ways investing in this costume of Feyre felt like investing in myself and my own value.

I am making the outfit that can be seen on the book cover for “A Court of Wings and Ruin.” The cover art was inspired by Charlie Bowater’s fan art for the series. The art showcases Feyre standing tall with Rhysand in very elegant and fancy clothes. I interpreted it as coronation clothes or wedding clothes for the pair. I love the way the couple look at one another in full love and acceptance of each other and all of their qualities. I also love outfits with embellishment as it is something I don’t get to play around with very often. With this project I am learning hand embroidery so I can capture the swirling, smokey patterns on the top half of Feyre’s dress. I am patterning the entire costume myself as well. When I started patterning out the pieces, I had a really hard time. I still felt a lot of self-doubt and I questioned all of my measurements and calculations over an over. I needed so many breaks just to build up enough confidence to go back to the project, but as I kept at it, my skills were starting to come back to me and I began to remember myself. I remembered the procedures I learned in school, and the different ways to check my work. I made mistakes but I was also able to adjust and fix them too. From my sloper, I patterned out a corset and illusion piece but that went faster than my sloper as my confidence grew and I started to find that wonderful, focused state of being completely in the present. Slowly but surely, working on this Feyre costume started to feel less like an impossible task and more like a mindfulness activity. When I moved on to cut my pattern pieces out of my fashion fabric, my shears no longer felt heavy and dull. I took them to the shop to get sharpened, because like myself my tools also need to be cared for, so when I cut through that fabric, it felt like we worked in tandem even better than when I first bought them and fell in love with the left-handed grip. I really wanted to treat myself and feel good about every single thing with this project so I chose to use silk for my fashion fabric and lining fabric. I look forward to further embellishing the dress with rhinestones and a bit of sequin fabric too. When this project is finished, I will make the companion costume of Rhysand for the new love in my life. Without his loving support, I would be a very different person than I am today. With his costume I will expand on my embroidery lessons from Feyre and learn about machine embroidery and also work on my men’s tailoring skill set. My partner is the kind of person who put the needs of others before his own and I want to convey my love and gratitiude for such unconditional love into his costume. I was inspired by embroidery techniques I read about in my history of fashion classes where metal was woven in with the embroidery thread and I’ve seen modern day versions of this on costumes which I want to apply to the embroidery on his pieces.. He will also be adorned with silk because I believe that when we raise ourselves up, we raise others with us, and he has supported me and helped me rise from some very dark places. He is worth every thread of silk and every stitch of embroidery. Working on this costume for him is the strongest act of love I can do for him to convey my happiness, my healing, and my heart that grows daily from being together with him.

Every time I work on a new part of the project, I take my time and challenge myself to make it as best as I can. With every pattern piece I draw out, tweak, and draw again, it feels like I am working on my feelings about the past, scribbling out the old narrative, and drawing a new perspective on it. A perspective that reinforces the messages that I do matter, and that my existence and my thoughts are important. And every piece of fabric that I cut with the lefty shears that perfectly fit into my hand is like cutting out time in my day to pay attention to my needs and live more presently. When I sit at my sewing machine to put all the pieces together my machine says “Welcome home. I’ve missed you.” The pieces stitching together are the pieces of my life being stitched together with love and appreciation for my own strength and courage, and also for my friends and partner. It is in these ways that I find my way into creating my happiness. With each little step I take toward creating this costume for Feyre, I take another step forward into a better life for myself, one with more empathy, kindness, and mindfulness for living in the moment and creating that poignant, precious, waxing poetic kind of happiness.