Tying up loose ends

For years I wore a suit and tie to work. For all intents and purposes, it was my uniform. I kept to simple black and blue suits, a gray one if I was really trying to go crazy, and the ties tended to range from simple power colors for important meetings, crazy black and purple ones, red flowered ones. The ties changed to match my schedule and mood.

My dress changed over time. First my company moved to more business casual and then the pandemic hit, bringing on a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde look, with a nice business casual shirt or sweater on top and comfort-first sweats or shorts on the bottom. With all this dressing down, my fashion sense has taken a hit. I had to get dressed up recently and needed to wear a tie. I looked in the mirror for the longest time trying to remember the last time I wore one. It’s been a long time. It’s been so long that I forgot how to tie it.

I felt like an old soldier squeezing into an old uniform. I could imagine him or her saying: “How does this go again? I know I know how.”

Image by Dom J via Pexels.

I tried the tie one way and then the other. Both times I came up with a rumpled, twisted mess. Eventually I was able to figure things out, but it felt strange. How could I forget this small step that I had taken each morning for close to two decades? Why did it seem so foreign?

It actually bothered me for a day or two. I wasn’t worried about memory or losing my mind, I just remembered my dad telling me that knowing how to tie a tie is something that everyone should know how to do, just like changing your oil or changing a tire. I felt horrible that I had forgotten such a small, but important thing.

I tried to scoff it off, but it still bothered me. Finally, it took something else to help get me out of my funk.

I’m doing some consulting work on the side, helping a friend, and I helped edit a video for her that I would have never been able to create in years past. It reminded me of countless other skills and tasks that I’ve learned in recent years. Of course, I forgot how to tie my tie, but I’ve learned a million things in that time. 

I don’t need to know how to tie my tie. If I need to know it in the future, it will come back to me. In the interim, I’ve mastered or taken up other skills, many of them work-related, including SharePoint, PowerPoint, Python, ChatGPT, Photo Editing, etc.  

I’m not losing my touch, I’m just putting my priorities in place. And oh yea, one more thing, I gotta say, I like how I looked in those suits, I liked looking dapper, but I don’t miss wearing that tie at all. Good riddance!