I've spent the summer watching everyone walk around in these cute, shrunken minidresses, and it's actually made me quite grumpy.  I would really like to wear one but know that I can't.  I'm not one of those people with hard and fast rules, "You are over 40, so you shouldn't wear a minidress."  I'm much more realistic.  I, personally, should not wear a minidress.  Not because I'm over 40, but because my knees are.  You see, the skin around my knees is droopy and wrinkly.  Some people might say who cares?  They are your knees; if you want to expose them, go ahead.  But I won't, and here is why.  I won't feel confident about how they look.  I will be worried about how they look to other people even if other people don't notice them.  It will distract me.

So many times we don't realize that it's the little things like this that are shutting us down.  I wouldn't enjoy a precious day out with my husband if I was worried about something like this.  An even bigger problem though are those of us who don't worry about things like this.  I know a lot of people who say that they don't care what other people think.  "I'm going to wear what I want to wear."  I hear this most vehemently from people who aren't dressing for their best features.  When we sit down to talk about why, it usually has an emotional component.  Nine out of ten people don't have an actual attachment to these particular clothes.  They know they aren't following "the rules" or dressing for success.  But they want to believe that appearance doesn't matter, that it shouldn't matter.  I'm sorry, but in the world we live in, it does matter.

In response to my grumpiness about minidresses, I put together this outfit as a compromise that I could live with.  What are you thinking about compromising on?