The Inner Child

 Do you have problems with your inner child?

I surely do.

For background to what I'm about to tell you, I should mention that I have a modest income and that I recently joined a choir with a performance dress code of white top, black skirt or trousers, and black shoes. There's a performance in March and I have no black skirt. Each month I can allow myself small personal purchases, and with this in mind I have some black fabric on watch to make the sort of skirt I like.

The skirts I wear, all made by me, are 34 inches long, and are made from fabric 60 inches wide — double, so 120-inch width at the hem. I reduce the width at the top to about 40 inches in total by stitching down from the top about five inches to create box pleats all round, and I add a waistband channel on top for one-inch elastic. So I end up with a skirt that looks like this on the hanger. 

And this is what they look like worn.

So — if I want to take part in the choir concert it's imperative that I buy the black fabric I have in mind, or I won't get it sewn in time. I have enough money to do this and I will enjoy the project.

Now enter the inner child.

I occasionally amuse myself looking at ladies' clothes on eBay, which is where I buy my sweaters and shirts. Under my skirts, incidentally, instead of ladies' briefs and a petticoat, I wear cropped jersey pyjama bottoms, which work as what they call pettipants, ie do both jobs in one. I buy those on eBay too.

So when I was pottering around on eBay, looking at dresses just for entertainment, I saw this dress.

It's a good make, it's viscose crêpe (a nice fabric) and is the right size and length for me, and the colours are small pink flowers on a blue background which I like. But the thing is, as my inner adult and my inner parent both know full well, I will neither wear it nor keep it. To be wide enough for my hips and shoulders it'll be loose enough at the waist to look saggy and sad in wearing. It'll be long enough but because it's a one-piece garment and I am hypermobile — so I'm round-shouldered and very slouchy — it'll look like a sack and make me look like Auntie Vera from the Giles cartoons of my teenage years. I have a long back, so the top half will be too short and make me look as if my bust is trying to reach my knees (and I hate those cantilevered iron bras with a passion). I look way better in a skirt and top than in a dress. Plus the skirt on that dress is only about half as full as I like my skirts to be.

In addition to that, I already have two dresses, and two is plenty, given that I usually wear skirts and tops.

Still, that didn't stop my inner child from melting down as I went to delete it from my eBay watch list and basket — oh no, it was all I want it! I want it! Let me have it! Why can't I have it? Sigh.

And not only that, but having — finally — understood what's been ailing my body and implementing the dietary changes needed to solve it, without being so radical as to stick to only meat, I have allowed myself (in addition to some low-oxalate vegetables) at afternoon teatime to have a biscuit or a piece of cake. Just one, once a day, because I don't want diabetes or dementia on my list of fun occupations of the future.

So what happened at breakfast time? There's my inner child, screaming Cake! I want cake! I want cake now and at teatime!

You know what? I raised five children, and not one of them gave me as much trouble as my own inner child does. And the worst part is knowing that, as long as I live, she will always be with me. She will never, ever, grow up and leave home.

How about you? Is your inner child well-behaved or as wearisome as mine?