My Charity Shop Trips – The Blue Dress

Chapter 1: The Safest Places to Be Seen

I was nineteen, though the feelings had been with me for much longer. As far back as I could remember, I had never quite fitted into the shape expected of me. It wasn’t something I had words for as a child. I only knew that I felt closer to the girls than the boys, that the rules of boyhood felt like a performance I hadn’t auditioned for and didn’t understand. Boys would say “You throw like a girl” and I’d be confused why that was an insult. I learned early how to stay quiet about it, how to fold those feelings down small and keep them tucked away where no one else could see.

This was before the internet made everything easier. Before you could scroll, click, and have a parcel arrive at your door without ever having to meet another person. Back then, wanting something meant going out into the world to get it. It meant entering shops, standing under bright lights, being visible, being vulnerable.

That visibility was what frightened me most.

The nearby town had a short high street and like many British high streets, a large number of charity shops. They sat from one end of the high street to the other, their windows cluttered with mismatched mannequins and faded posters. I passed them all many times before I ever went inside one, learning their rhythms from the pavement – which ones looked busier, which ones felt quieter, which ones I might survive, who appeared to be behind the till, which might be safest.

I chose charity shops deliberately. They felt safer. The staff were usually middle-aged or elderly women, volunteers with sensible shoes and cardigans, women who reminded me more of aunties or grandmothers than judges. I was far more afraid of women my own age – of laughter, recognition or, worse, judgement. In charity shops, I could almost believe I was invisible.

The first time I went in, my heart pounded so loudly I was sure someone would comment on it. I drifted around the edges, pretending to browse books and bric-a-brac, never quite letting my eyes settle where they wanted to. The rails of women’s clothing were there, unavoidable, bright with colour and soft with fabric, but I treated them like a fire – something warm and dangerous I wasn’t allowed to touch.

I left without buying anything. I told myself that was fine. Going in at all had been enough, had taken all my courage.

So I went back the next week. And the week after that.