A Challenge & Dedication
Caroline is the author of Fairly Smooth Operator now available on Amazon. She is PhD student and CIA and Coast Guard veteran.
I recently started instructing at a university as part of my PhD program and decided I would take on a personal challenge to try to wear a different outfit for every class, without repeating, through the semester. I am into week eight of the mental and creative challenge and I am barely keeping up, due to wardrobe and time limitations.
The challenge was inspired by the first mentor I had at the CIA. She was assigned as a team lead for Christopher and I during our first training. Her name was Fay and she was about 75 years old with a genuine “sweet old lady” demeanor, coupled by apparently closets full unique clothing. She was short, no more than 5 foot 5 inches and had curly, shoulder length hair that blended her grays with black. She spoke softly, which was unique for her career type that typically consisted of boisterous men. As the training progressed, my colleague Christopher and I were becoming close and soon began to exchange notes about what we were experiencing in the training.
“Yeah, that part was hard, but what is going on with Fay? I haven’t seen that colorful hand-stitched shawl since day three,” I said to Christopher.
“I know! I love that one, but it’s like she has a new outfit every day…” he replied.
Fay, with her style, let us in on her secrets. She had first been the spouse of an operations officer and then took on the training and operations herself. She told us her favorite spy books, which included the entire Red Sparrow series.
“Did you read the sequel? It’s steamy,” Christopher said.
“I did! But when I’m reading I think about Fay and how she loves these books,” I laughed.
“Me too! I read a paragraph about them in the bedroom and then I say to myself, ‘oh Fay you naughty lady!’” Christopher said.
Fay even revealed to us that her son, who must have been at least 30, still lived at home. We tried to understand how that was possible when Fay was such an intelligent and competent woman, but never could grasp it.
“Apparently he went to college,” Christopher revealed.
“What is he doing then? Fay needs to “case officer” influence him out of that house,” I said.
We both wanted what was best for Fay, maybe because through the training, she wanted the best for us. By the end of the course, we concluded that Fay was a closed book who opened some of herself up to us. For some reason though, we never asked about her outfits, none of which she ever repeated.
Why did she do it? How did she keep it straight over the months? Did she have a chart or simply keep her clothing in a certain order? Did she repeat on a yearly basis?
Perhaps we never asked because we wanted to keep that mystery alive.
In my silly semester challenge, I don’t expect that anyone notices my wardrobe. I thought that by doing it I would understand more about Fay. Maybe it’s how she keeps things fresh. Maybe it’s her creative outlet for the day. Maybe she used it as some sort of signaling in her operations and I’m an idiot for trying to keep up. Whatever it is, Christopher and I both noticed it’s now both a challenge and a dedication.