What to Wear on Your Last Day

What do you wear on your last day?

You asked your friends that question before getting ready and heading out.

It’s Sunday, and by midnight, you’ll be 30. You’re sitting in a club, dressed in all black, wondering if it was all worth it. Not just your outfit and the time you would rather much spend binge eating and watching K-Drama at home. But your entire life choices that have led to this very moment.

Where you’re wearing an outfit you had to thrift, in a club you had to pay money you don’t have to reserve a table, taking shots you can’t afford with people you’re pretty sure you wouldn’t think twice about their safety in an apocalypse. You feel something, but you can’t quite place it—can’t give it a name. It’s somewhere between sadness, anxiety, anger, and an all-around wistfulness, with a twinge of humor.

Humor because you remember the bright-eyed 20-year-old you once were, the one who swore she’d have it all figured out by now—a cushy job, a ring on her finger from a handsome man, kids, and a house where the extended family gathered for the holidays. The full Hallmark movie dream. But when you’re young, you think you have all the time in the world—until you’re 30, in a club, dressed in all black, mourning your twenties, as your friends put it, with none of those things in sight.

So, what does one wear on the last day before turning 30?

Maybe a black ruffle skirt and a black halter neck top that feels a little too desperate, paired with jewelry gifted by many exes and shoes from your current boyfriend. Makeup that’s subtle yet fierce enough to say there’s a celebration in tow. Everything topped off with a black and silver sash that reads “30 to Be.”

I guess that’s what one wears on their last day to get their s**t  figured out.