Have you ever flipped a coin? What did you get? Heads or the other side? Well every decision we make is like flipping a coin. Every time we make a decision, we open a new possibility, a new reality even. It’s like having to choose your way in a fork road.
Some choices mildly affect our lives; others wouldn’t even leave a dent on the life we choose. But most of them make us who we are.
I too had a similar choice, well, everybody else does anyway, but this is one of the most unforgettable choices I had made. I’m talking about the color black.
Since my elementary days I cared for what I wore. I would easily go for the all white look or the all black look. I had this one white shorts, whenever that was clean I wore it but I knew it wouldn’t go well with the black shirts I had so, I paired them with my white shirts then. And the same went with my black pants and shorts. Since then I would wore just all white and just all black, but of course in some days, like if I had nothing to wear anymore, I’d wear a blue shirt and any color of shorts, it was easy then to wear what I wanted and I really hadn’t yet gone to the full pledge all black thing yet so the “rule” was flexible and I sort of considered myself as someone, even at a young age, who had an advantage of fashion (not likely the highest kind but just the sense of it).
When I stepped in high school it all changed, first was for the worse. I was lost, since some of my shirts and pants did not fit me and the fear of being laughed at by having your own taste studying in a Private Catholic school who’s music genre of choices then were all boy bands, I wasn’t really ready to wear what I really wanted, since everybody in school wore wholesome and colorful and MTV based attires I had no choice but to try to fit in. I wore some shirts that are, let’s just say, not black. Blue long sleeves and I even had a FUBU long sleeved orange shirt once and I wore it like I really loved it, I later found out that I wear it because other people wear it, not that because I really wanted it.
One day, I went to church with my friends, yeah, this was a time where you’re required to go to church so that you’re Religion teacher wouldn’t scold you the next day for not attending. We even had index cards prepared so we can have the priest sign it as proof we attended. It was totally frustrating. But anyway, I was wearing my semi-white pants and I forgot what was the color of the shirt I had and my shoes really didn’t match what I was wearing above, to tell you the truth, everything wasn’t really a good sight for nothing matched anything. I hadn’t realized it yet, but I did when a classmate of mine, standing beside me in the church while hearing the mass looked at me from toe to head and chuckled. I wouldn’t forget the chuckled he did. I didn’t even asked him what was funny, I knew it was what I was wearing when I looked at myself right after the chuckle. After that, I really was depressed, asking myself, whatever happened to me since my all white all black days? And the week after that, I stopped going to church. Not for the sake of not hearing the mass, but, because I was so embarrassed of my sense of fashion or just simply my decision on clothes.
I rarely went out since that day. But lucky enough, I had a turning point in my life. Yes. You can call this a turning point. I had this crush on one of my classmates and when she dumped me, the first thing I thought, or the first thing anybody would think whenever they’d be dumped is, whether they looked good enough for the ones they go after, or whether they looked “okay” enough for the girl to be lured with their looks. Whatever it is, it’s about the outside appearance most of the time that would make a big difference if you’d be able to attract her or not. Well, like most of the people in this world who get dumped, I thought of it too. And that for me is what I thought why I got dumped. At this point, I really have had enough of this attire crap. I said to myself, I have to be myself and the hell with the world, I don’t care anymore. So I did it, I finally did it. The first step was the choice, a fairly look good on white too I tell you that, but I had to make a choice, I already decided that I would go for the old me, the one who only wore clothes and pants of one color, but I had to make a choice of just having one color, because that was the next step, and anything with matching color didn’t need matching at all for I sucked at that.
So I had to choose, just the two colors in my closet, well there were other colored shirts in my closet, but I had to choose only one. I had to do this all the way, take it the next level. I imagined the consequences of having the other color to the other. But I heard a voice in my heart, and it said; “you don’t have to change anything, just accept who you are and go with it all the way.” Well wearing white has always been there for me, but I though at that instant, “fuck white, join the dark side” and so I did.
I quickly took every colored shirt out of my closet and left all the black. Black shirt black shorts, socks and luckily, black pants. My underwear then was white, well now, it ain’t. They’re all black too. What was left out of my closet were all black, it wasn’t many, in fact my closet looked deserted, but I knew that day, that it was a beginning of something big, and I promised my self, there’d be a day that every attire I wore was black, from socks, underwear, neckties, shorts, pants, long sleeves, sleeveless, shirts everything, that I would soon fill my closet with nothing but black clothes. And to this day, I’ve never looked back, BLACK wise.
Today just it has been since “that” day, if you look into my closet, you’d see this.
It wasn’t really easy going that way, but I have no regrets. I had my ups and down wearing black, being criticized is one of the most, being mistaken for someone evil or someone with an evil intention, not that I didn’t have any, having to be looked at and laughed and joked about on streets, really annoying, and finally I get respected. Yes, if you know me just now, of you know me at all, not likely the first thing that would come into mind, but if you really knew me, then you’d know that the color black is a really big deal with me. now imagine if I had not worn black the whole time, would I be where I am now, I would have still, but on a different level, and you’re view on me, would degrade fashion wise. I tell you this is true. I really can’t imagine myself wearing a different color, could you? My point is, this color made me who I am, and put me on this place that I really don’t want to go back, only because I really love it, and I wish to push it farther and farther and turn it up a notch higher and higher, I’ve already done it with almost all my stuff changeable to Black or modified to the color, but it had to start with my attire and it really did start from then on.
I love the color black more than any color on this world. It’ really not even a color if you want to talk about it, it’s more of a tone like white, but this is not the time to discuss it, it’s just frustrating to debate about it. For me, the color black symbolizes a lot of things. Like formality, peace, beauty, evil, life and death. Among other things, the color black also defines people, well what I want to know about them. Really, right now, if I choose a girl if she is beautiful or not (not to court or to fall in love with, just for the sake of having to tell what’ beautiful) she has to be wearing black before I could really tell she’s really beautiful for me. if I think she’s already beautiful as she is, I really have to insist her to wear black and judge her yet again if she still looks beautiful after, if it changes, if she doesn’t fit in the color black, then I really don’t think she’s beautiful. Sure, bitch about inner beauty and stuff, but this is how I view something beautiful, this is what I have to see, and if I lie about this then, the whole sense of the word beautiful would just be ugly.
I have an entry on my album on multiply about all the things Black that I own, well basically just clothes for now, I call them BLACK WEAR or DARK WEAR http://knownastheunknown.multiply.com/photos/album/57 whichever you prefer. And I post this as proof of what I claim, and this is also a good way of recording my collection of Black clothes. You’ve probably have seen me with the most of the Black Wear here but this makes thing easy when someone sees me, I usually get trapped in a conversation like this:
+someone+ Hey Luci, I saw you the other day at the mall / ust / convention / tv / exhibit / magazine / website.
+Luci+ Really? When? What was I wearing?
+someone+ You were wearing black.
+Luci+ ( I usually give them a face like this ) +X_X+
Not that I don’t know what to expect in those kind of conversations, but I am really asking is what kind of attire I was wearing, long sleeves, polo with shirt, sleeveless, t-shirt, I know it’s black, believe me I know. But it determines when and where they saw me and I could clearly state if it was really me or not. Not that I am complaining about being asked, it’s just something unique to share.
Wearing other colored shirts is really not so of a big deal for me, yes I clearly state I wear all black most of my life and all the time on profiles and resumes and other things, but yes I still wear other colored shirts, like white, well only white. And it’s in UST, and I call it uniform, As if I have a choice. But I still pack with me Black Wear for emergencies, and inside the polo shirt, I wear black shirt just recently. Well just recently because I follow rules more often than not. I wear white too on weddings, when my sister got married, I had to wear a white Barong Tagalog, and sometimes on formal Filipino events like my Grandmother’s birthday, it’s really alright for me. it’s just for a day and to go against it would only be stupid, I could wear Black the rest of my life so why not make people happy. I do however have to ask first, like, if I can wear Black in that event, if they say yes, then I’m happy. Just last March, my grandmother had another birthday, the theme was Hawaiian attire, and I think you can visualize it, but I had to go with my Black wear, so I had my Black polo open and wore a Black skirt and I looked in themed with everyone else. It’s really not the color that has to define who you are or who you want the world to know who you are, but you also have to be who you claim to be even without the shirt, even if you’re stripped down ass naked.
Having to wear all Black since I was in 
my second year high school up to now has really been something I’m really proud of. It’s like a commitment that you have no plan to end. I’ve known people who have taken the same road as I have, some of them have quit a long time ago, some of them are just beginning, other are up until now wearing all black far more longer than I have. I have seen people try and fail, and some try hard. Wearing Black doesn’t mean anything, unless you want it to mean something, but for me,
I let the wearing Black have meaning.
You might ask again how simple choices would effect you life, well, if I were you, before you flip the coin, you should imagine first what’s in stored for each side of the coin. As for me, the flip isn’t necessary, as long as I see the other side of the coin Black.
