outfit | grown woman

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I’m starting to feel like introductions are in order because it’s been a good two months *hides* since I’ve last graced the DearSolo blog with my presence. But in my defence, if you’ve been following me on social media, you’d know that the past few months have not been particularly easy.

Since I last blogged, I went to Nigeria (and I will post pics of that soon, don’t worry – but you can catch up with #DearSoloGoesToLagos on Instagram), went back to Joburg and then back to Cape Town for semester two. My blog was put on hold because literally as I posted my previous post, my laptop broke and I was without one for 35 days. As a child of the internet who archives her life are on her laptop, I was proud that I managed to cope laptopless (barely) even into the start of semester.

Above and beyond that, though, I’ve been sick since I touched down in Cape Town with tonsillitis, sinusitis, the flu and just sick of life, really. Second semester hit me like a small truck and it’s taken me quite a while to get back on my feet again. All I’m waiting for is test week to be over so I can go to Joburg for a few days and see my family ?.

Now that that’s out of the way – we can discuss my change of hair since you last saw me (and it will change again within the next few weeks. Suggestions for upcoming hairstyles are always welcome! I’m thinking faux locs at some stage?), and the title post/businesslike-ness of this outfit.

I called this post ‘Grown Woman’ because that’s exactly how I’ve been feeling lately – like a grown up. Despite life being rude, I’ve had to suck it up because life carries on, with or without you. Even when you want to hide from the world for the next two weeks, you still have to go to work and lectures, do your tutorials and you can’t just avoid people indefinitely (you can for a weekend, though). Don’t get me wrong – sometimes isolation may be necessary for self care, but life still continues and you have to continue with it. So that just goes to show that being a grown up isn’t all sunshine and daisies, and you have to do things you’d rather not, but so it goes.

I wore this outfit (shoutout to my new favourite handbag from 32 Clothing) on the 9th of August to my residence’s Women’s Day High Tea, because, as you know, August is Women’s Month and the 9th is Women’s Day where we (supposedly) commemorate the strong women of 1956 who marched to the Union Buildings against oppressive pass laws under the apartheid regime. I was a bit apprehensive to go because often times, discussions around Women’s Day are often shallow, but I appreciated that our chat touched on real issues on womanhood in South Africa, culture, feminism and the likes.

This brings me to my newest obsession – the Frank Podcast with Janine Jellars and Tshego Senne. It’s a weekly podcast with two incredible women where they discuss real issues and also some lighthearted banter along the way. They discussed Women’s Day about a week ago and I really enjoy how they articulate feelings I often find hard to verbalise – like how brands lose the meaning of Women’s Day with their pink+discounts commercialisation of it and campaigns that just miss the mark, amongst other things. I encourage everyone to give it a listen – these are women I admire whose voices definitely carry weight in my life, especially Janine (who I’ve known since I was 15, woah!).

I hope I can get back to regular posting soon and try formulate blogging into my life routine because I actually really enjoy it – I love writing for myself and I hope I can start doing that more on here too commander du vrai viagra.

If you, like me, are having tests this week, good luck! Catch you guys on the other side.