“It’s sexy fancy!! As extra as you want to be. Dress to impress.”
That was the answer I received when I finally asked someone what we were supposed to wear to a fundraiser we were attending.
I stared at the message.
Sexy fancy?
What exactly does that mean?
At some point during the day, I remember thinking, my cortisol levels have got to be through the roof.
I was sweating.
Literally.
And while figuring out what to wear became the problem directly in front of me, the clothes weren’t really the problem.
We simply had no idea what we were walking into.
A few weeks earlier, my husband and I had been asked if our business would be interested in sponsoring an organization supporting young athletes and their programs.
The person who approached us is someone we’ve known for years. She originally came into our office as a patient, eventually became one of my clients, and later worked for us for about a year. She had dreams of becoming a professional trainer, so when the opportunity came, she left us to pursue them.
We’ve continued to treat her and cheer her on.
So, when she asked if we’d consider becoming a sponsor, we were happy to support something that mattered to her.
We said yes.
What we didn’t realize was how much detective work would follow.
We didn’t have much information about the event. I spent hours searching through social media trying to find a flyer.
Then we discovered that our sponsorship apparently included passes for a 5K taking place that morning.
We hadn’t realized that was part of the sponsorship or had anything on hand to share with people beforehand.
Then I had to search for the address of the evening celebration.
We knew we had a table for eight, and someone needed a head count and the names of our guests.
But we still didn’t know enough about the evening to answer the questions our guests might have.
Where exactly were we going?
What was the evening going to be like?
Was it casual? Formal? Somewhere in between?
I understood this was the third year of the event, so I searched for pictures from previous years hoping I could get some idea.
Nothing.
Which eventually led me to one seemingly simple question:
What am I supposed to wear?
That’s when I received:
Sexy fancy.
As extra as you want to be.
Dress to impress.
Well, that certainly cleared things up.
I started going through my closet.
I had a black rayon jumpsuit I thought might work, but I don’t usually like having my arms uncovered. And since I’d discovered the event might be outdoors, I was also thinking about mosquitoes.
I started layering.
First came an orange shirt and a long gray overlay.
Too casual.
Then I remembered a sheer black cape I’d owned for years and had never worn.
Maybe this was finally its moment.
Black jumpsuit. Sheer black cape. Jewelry. Dress it up.
Okay.
Maybe I was getting somewhere.
Except, then came the shoes.
The shoes I wanted to wear I owned in blue. I was certain I had them in black, too.
I couldn’t find them.
So now I was reconsidering the cape and pulling out a blue floral cover-up that would coordinate with the blue shoes.
At this point, I wasn’t getting dressed.
I was solving a puzzle.
Meanwhile, I’d told one of our friends what I’d been told about the attire.
Her response surprised me.
They were going to have to cancel. She hadn’t known there was a dress code, and her man’s slacks and shirt were at the cleaners.’
Wait.
What?
I quickly explained that I didn’t think there was an actual dress code. I’d simply asked what people were wearing because I didn’t know how to dress for the event.
But the uncertainty had now spread beyond me.
Then our other friends backed out.
Suddenly, the table for eight we’d scrambled to fill wasn’t going to be the evening we’d imagined at all.
And my husband wasn’t really feeling it anymore either.
For him, it wasn’t about the clothes.
He’d become frustrated by all the uncertainty, too.
We’d agreed to be sponsors because we wanted to support the cause, but somewhere along the way, the excitement we’d initially felt had been replaced by questions. We were trying to invite friends to join us while still trying to understand the evening ourselves.
None of it was catastrophic on its own.
But it kept stacking.
One unanswered question on top of another.
And another.
And another.
By the time I was standing in my closet contemplating a sheer black cape and wondering what exactly qualified as sexy fancy, my body seemed to have joined the conversation.
I was hot.
I was sweating.
I was frustrated.
And the whole time, I kept thinking, my cortisol levels have got to be through the roof.
And maybe that was the first clue that this wasn’t actually about my outfit.
In the end, we decided to stay home. By that point, neither of us was looking forward to the evening anymore. What had started as something we were happy to support had somehow become something we were stressing over.
The Morning After
The next day, I opened Instagram.
The main host had posted pictures and videos from the fundraiser in his Stories.
I started looking at the people.
And then I looked at what they were wearing.
Are you kidding me?
There were people dressed up. There were people dressed more casually. There was a range.
Our friends would have been fine.
We would have been fine.
And had I shown up in that sheer black cape I’d contemplated wearing, I might have been the one wondering whether I had gone a little too far with “as extra as you want to be.”
I was upset.
Not because of what everyone wore.
Because I suddenly realized how much stress I’d created trying to prepare for all the things I didn’t know.
A few days later, I stumbled across something else.
Another social media post.
There it was.
A picture of the event poster.
Posted back in July.
At least some of the information had existed. Somehow, we just hadn’t had it when we needed it.
And that’s when I realized this story wasn’t really about a fundraiser.
It wasn’t about a black jumpsuit.
It wasn’t even about trying to figure out what sexy fancy means.
It was about what happens when we don’t have enough information.
Filling in the Blanks
We humans don’t seem to like empty spaces.
When information is missing, we fill it in ourselves.
Someone doesn’t text back, and we wonder what we did wrong.
The boss says, “Can I talk to you?” and before we’ve made it to the office, we’ve imagined ourselves unemployed.
We’re invited somewhere unfamiliar and start wondering who will be there, what we’ll say, what everyone else will be wearing, and whether we’ll fit in.
Sometimes our minds are solving problems that don’t even exist yet.
That’s essentially what I spent the day doing.
Every missing piece of information created another decision.
Every decision created another possibility.
And every possibility created something else to think about.
What fascinated me afterward was realizing that telling myself to calm down probably wouldn’t have helped.
I wasn’t necessarily overreacting.
I was under-informed.
There is a difference.
Sometimes what looks like anxiety, indecision, overthinking, or even irritability may simply be our brain trying desperately to create certainty where there isn’t any.
And maybe the answer isn’t always:
Stop worrying.
Don’t overthink it.
Just relax.
Maybe sometimes the first question should be:
What information am I missing?
Maybe I need to ask another question.
Maybe I need clarification.
Maybe I need to acknowledge that I simply don’t know yet instead of filling the empty space with every possible scenario.
Information doesn’t eliminate uncertainty.
There will always be things we can’t know.
But sometimes one missing piece of information can save us hours of trying to fill in the blank ourselves.
So, the next time you find yourself spiraling around a situation, getting frustrated, changing your mind for the tenth time, or standing in your closet sweating while holding a sheer black cape you have never worn, ask yourself:
Am I overwhelmed by what’s actually happening?
Or am I overwhelmed by everything I don’t know?
And if it’s the second one, maybe you don’t need to calm down.
Maybe you just need more information.
And maybe our friend can wear the pants that aren’t at the cleaners.’
Theresa
Flexible Being
Empowering Your Journey to Healing, Clarity, and Self-Discovery.
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Theresa Martinez-Shapiro
Theresa Martinez-Shapiro is the founder of Flexible Being, a Reiki Master, Certified Oracle Guide, intuitive mentor, and writer based in Stockton, California. Through Musings of a Flexible Being, she explores healing, mindfulness, relationships, intuition, and personal growth with a grounded yet spiritual approach.
